Bubble And Scrape is a great name for a harsh album buried with treasure. Over its runtime, it felt at times like I was being punished for desperately seeking out the more touching moments promised by the record's opening track "Soul and Fire." This is truly one of the greatest breakup songs ever written, and what follows seems like Sebadoh immediately lashing out at me in response to their own vulnerability.
What starts as a very earnest balance of sweetness and atonal jerkoff sessions quickly slides into favor of the latter. Side A summoned new and inventive ways to torture and annoy me from a time before I was born. The wanky guitar, fried harmonica parts, I was just trying to explain it all away in my head to pass the time. I don't even want to think about most of those songs again if I'm being honest.
Side B softens and mellows appreciably, and even doubles back towards that aforementioned balance of acridity and sweetness conjured so naturally by the slacker rock greats. Just when I thought I had paid my dues, the outro to "Bouquet for a Siren" suddenly points a Side A shaped pistol at my temple - a stark threat in case I get fidgety and try to engage seriously with the material again. I don't want to go back and check, but I think it was that song: There was the opening notes of a delay-soaked free horn part over a tangle of guitar noise I had already sat through scowling. However, right as I was going to get super angry, the song abruptly ended. It was as if the track had the Side A gun, turned it on itself, smiled knowingly, and pulled the trigger.
If the collection of songs is meant to corroborate an experience of the songwriters, that can be beautiful. It can also be total BS, even if it's totally honest. This album, much like life, had both. Also much like life, I had no say in it other than ending it prematurely, which I did not do. Maybe this is the point -- there is joy and pain and loss and hope, and you must bear all of it if you decide to participate, come what may. It could also be that the record's just not as good as I remember and that other one is better.
It pains me to say that my favorite part of the listen-through might have been at the end, when a song's intro perked my ears up but when I checked for the title it was a Teenage Fanclub track on autoplay - That would have been my favorite if not for "Soul and Fire," which was the cotton candy so naively washed clean by the raccoon in the stream, only to disintegrate in his little hands.
This is a record I've never listened to by a band I've never heard of. I think it's only fair to start out with my expectations. Based on just the name, album cover, and year, I'd venture to guess this is some kind of guitar based psych band, maybe with some dulcimer parts or whatever. I think it will be an interesting listen, where the guitars and harmonies are cool but the songs are too long and the vocals are weird. Let's get right into it.
Immediately impressed by the vocals. Ladies only sounded like this in the late sixties. The instruments are lush and clear but with a healthy amount of grit and life to them. Eastern stuff safely limboing under the shtick stick, but I called that dulcimer. You gotta give it up.
Track two shanty style and fiddles sing along, this sounds like it could be a bunch of drunk french people trying to play a van morrison song from memory. I don't think I could listen to this while trying to focus on literally anything else, but fortunately I'm locked in for this one.
Track 3 and I'm already friends with the diversity of the record. Truth be told, if I heard this track first I probably wouldn't have given the whole thing a chance, but with the momentum built from the first two tracks, which were not too long at all, this is a safe place for the record to turn off its jets and coast a little bit. This band has the same genetics as some truly degenerate fuckups, but it really managed to make something of itself.
Track 4 opening swell sounds like Heatmiser if Nick Drake was in charge. The strings all sound awesome, but I wish they weren't talking about being sailors. That always bums me out. Is this a real folk song or one they decided to add to the canon, so to speak? I'm not offended yet but the length of the song so far, paired with the sense I get that we're just getting started is starting to make me sweat. The guitars all starting to dig in on what sound like some low powered tweed amps is a great moment though, and I'd confidently call that a payoff. Assessing whether I'll ever hear this again, because I don't want to hear the sailing part again, there's something endearing knowing it could be my first and only time.
Track 5 verges on scary, like the whole song is trembling with anxiety. There's nothing wrong with that, I just don't know why the whole song is so freaked out.
Track 6 mellows out in a very british way. The vocals are Joni Mitchellesque to put it plainly, and theres room at the table here for both ease and a hopeful restlessness. The song allows my mind to wander, and I start to think about how applying modern standards would cut this song in half with a smile, but the number 1969 reminds me what time it is.
Track 7, I started off on the wrong foot with you. By the time the wandering, hard panned 60s electric guitar made it to my right ear, the song's unending lift all made sense to me. Of course, minutes later, I'm reminded that lifts end for a reason. Why am I still experiencing this same song?
Track 8 sounds like that goofy dude from the Greatful Dead. Oh my god, they're all Bob Dylan songs. It all makes sense to me now, this is basically half a bob dylan cover record. That spoils the fun by about 20 percent.
I have stuff to do, and I'm not excited enough to check out the bonus tracks. Not bad. As far as folk rock records go, I'd choose this over most of them in a heartbeat, as there was great playing on here. I love the album cover, and just how english everything is.
3/5
This record is so critical and ahead of its time that it feels like Napalm Death traveled through time to steal it from a band that's currently active, and then trashed the fidelity and fucked with the levels a little to make it seem like they didn't recursively copy their own homework.
A two part epoxy of CD skip guitar riffs paired with the rhythmic aggression of the most evocative hardcore and early death metal bands holds together a record that shouldn't hold together for 33 minutes. As an engineer in 1987, how do you even approach recording music that sounds like this? The guitars are disgusting, and each track is a homunculus with a distinct smell. Everything sounds like shit.
At times, the song's arrangements notice that the tone sounds like shit, gets fed up with the deal, and decides it wants to sound like shit too. The tightness of the tracks goes from the lumbering but steady tank tread powerful enough to crush even the most steadfast doubter to a coiled, directionless mess of steel only capable of jingling lifelessly. Once this rare runt song finally dies of uselessness, the record continues like it never happened. I'm willing to play ball.
There's something to be said (by me) about how this record sells all that needs to be sold in the grindcore marketplace of ideas. I often wonder, why do new bands keep trying to create what this record already is?
Great albums are more than the sum of their parts, and the difference of Scum's sum seems to be ball lightning strong enough to power almost 40 years of cultlike respect. I truly feel like this band turned on a chain reaction of imitation and homage that will last long after they're dead. Maybe you don't believe me but Magrudergrind used the same crayons to craft their instant classic in 2012.
I guess I’ll start with my expectations. Who knows?? Wha you do expect from someone named Travis, and a photo of some guy presumably named Travis as accompaniment?
That’s right, some guy in a yearbook cause you went to middle school with Travis. And that’s exactly what you get here. The dude you know likes Radiohead, you think.
I listened to this while I ran and caught myself thinking of math problems for fun just to pass the time. That’s not good. It’s not that this is bad. It’s just so far in the background that you forget it’s there. So much so that you find yourself wanting to put on music while it’s playing.
I think I like it. It’s so inoffensive and okay that it might be first in its class as a forgettable indie rock record with guitar, vocals, piano, and some YouTube tutorial chord changes. Well done.
A solid 1/2 stars. A double yellow line in the road.
It's hard to imagine the songs on Heavy Weather being created, rather than just existing and then being conjured by capable enough musicians. Colorful, and packed with a surprising amount of dimensionality for a record released in the eye of the lifeless production storm languidly ravaging the late 70s, Wayne Shorter and Jaco and that other guy really make magic here. The songs and the instruments on board get in, do their dance, and then get the fuck out of the way.
Putting my finger on why this release makes me so happy is a tall order. I find something new to love every time I listen. I can only glaze that which I do not understand for so long.