I know where I was when I first heard this. I sat in my friend’s anorexic-looking white Volvo sedan from the early 90s. As the music played, we all felt happy and content listening to the hip stuff while non-descript shopping malls passed us by. We were going to the beach to walk around aimlessly for a few hours.
The album begins with “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth”. What comes before isn’t necessarily bad, but things really take off with this song. Part of me wonders why a band would get energized right in the middle of things, but that’s beside the point. Hearing the vocalist for the first time, he sounds like an incoherent drunk. Upon further listens (which you’ll do, since it is a habit-forming song) you’ll realize he’s singing in English.
After that song, everything in the album makes sense. “Heavy Metal” which is more energetic power-pop than anything else, and the bittersweet song “Home on Ice” are probably my other favorites on here. These three songs have the expansive feel that they had been trying for with most of the album.
Unfortunately, the album they had following this lacked the same charisma. Perhaps this band was meant to exist in 2005 and after that it just missed the mark. Indie rock moved away from this kind of emotional display after this, which is a bit sad. Listening to it a half-decade later, I remember why I liked it and that reason hasn’t changed.