Pony Express Record

This album has been submitted by a user and is not included in any edition of the book.

Pony Express Record is the fifth studio album by American post-hardcore band Shudder to Think, released in 1994 by Epic Records. It was the first album of the band to feature guitarist Nathan Larson and drummer Adam Wade, after the departure of founding members Chris Matthews and Mike Russell. The album saw the band attempting to craft a unique sound. According to Wade, "high up on our agenda it was like, 'No matter what, we cannot sound like anybody else.' We didn’t want to be Fugazi or Soundgarden—though those influences were there." Larson recalls of the album: "We definitely made our strangest record to date. We really did want to have a pop hit, but we made a really weird record. Get Your Goat is brighter and poppier. Pony Express is velvety and dark". Pony Express Record has received considerable critical acclaim. Greg Prato of AllMusic retrospectively regarded it as "one of the most underrated rock records of the '90s". In 2003, Stylus Magazine writer Deen Freelon wrote that the album was "a jaw-dropping, head-scratching masterpiece back in '94 and remains so today". Pitchfork placed the album at number 29 on its original 1999 list of the top 100 albums of the 1990s.