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Archers of Loaf
[archers of loaf website]

All the Nations Airports It's obvious the boys at the record label sat these guys down and told them to rein it in, buy some new equipment and at least try to make an album the radio kids would understand. While the album sounds great, some of that raw energy has been sapped through the use of more conventional song structures. I saw these guys on tour for this album (for $2 at NYU!) and "Strangled by the Stereo Wire" was absolutely incredible live, but I couldn't help but feel the big-label baddies had gotten ahold of this band and tamed them for a more radio-friendly approach--although they’are still way far from being a radio-friendly band. There are a few tunes like "Chumming the Ocean" that certainly show some signs of Bachman's future project, Crooked Fingers, and an instrumental that sounds an awful lot like one of the tracks from a Barry Black LP.

Icky Mettle If I could start off every mix I ever make with "Web in Front" I'd be a happy man. It's one of my favorite songs of all time and puts me in a great mood every time I hear it. Why, you may ask, do I love it so? I have no idea, I just do. The rest of Icky Mettle is a great amalgam of angular post-rock that sounds as if the band's equipment hasn't been tuned in a while and their strings are snapping on every song. Before you get all scared, this is a good thing, and adds to the off-kilter, college basement sound that's at work here. The band always sounds slightly out of control, and lead singer, Eric Bachman's, voice always sounds as if it's on the verge of collapse. The album is good, raucous fun that shows a group doing its indie thing without brakes.

The Speed of Cattle Usually collections of B-sides, outtakes, etc. are hit-or-miss. I love the song "What Did You Expect?"  and "Ethel Merman" (which always reminds me of the movie Airplane), and am actually surprised by the quality of most of the other tracks on this album. The songs tend to be a little less all over the place and spastic than some of the stuff on their first couple of albums, and in being more "pop" probably will piss off some purists, but this material seems to me to be a good bridge between the first two albums of angular craziness and the last two albums of more crafted, somber tunes.

Vee Vee Building on the shredding noise that was their debut, Icky Mettle, Vee Vee incurs the same fits of jarring guitar screeches (including a couple that sound an awful lot like a large truck backing up) and blister the listener's ears with raw rock 'n roll. Built around themes of idol worship, rock cynicism and, uh, drinking, it seems the Archers have tried to write some more melodic tunes (although not too melodic) that involve more clearly defined structures. What results is an album full of memorable tunes that got me through my slag of a job hauling dummies around as a production assistant for Rescue 911--my first job out of college. I played this one to death, honestly, and it hasn't lost anything since. It’s easily my favorite Archers album.

Vs. The Greatest of All Time EP EPs are tough. It's like just when you're getting into them, they end. Also, in the days before the iPOD, it was always a pain in the ass putting on a CD that only lasts fifteen minutes and then having to fish it out for another disc. Vs. makes the most of its short timing, involving some of the great noise of their first album with more rockin' melodies from their second, Vee Vee. The subject matter is more of the same, talking about themselves in the context of indie rock (ironic considering their eventual move to a major label), but in the scheme of this EP it works. Shout down the A&R and radio folks. Woohoo!

White Trash Heroes They ain't brash no more. They're road weary and beaten down. They've had too much booze and too little success. They're older and wiser, but somehow less frayed. Experimenting with some different production techniques and time signatures, the melodies are more plodding, the feeling heavier and monolithic. This feels like an end-of-the-road album for a band. The swan song that slowly morphs into the lead singer's solo career (see Pavement's Terror Twilight and Screaming Trees' Dust for other examples), mellowing and dulling the edge that made the band exciting and messy and vibrant and replacing it with a more “mature” sound that generally involves some sort of alcohol abuse, relationship bliss/destruction and/or the urge to play all the instruments on the album and alienate your core audience by acting like an adult.