Funeral Dress

Has a real lively energy and a DIY sensibility. I like the variety of vocal performances. Fairly typical of its time. Almost anticipates some of the folk revival sounds of the late 2000s/early 2010s without quite sounding folky. Infectious little melodies and some good sing-along hooks.

I heard some inspiration of REM, Fleetwood Mac and Bruce Springsteen. But in totallity only 75% as good.

Someone's from Cincinnati and it shows. 4 stars for a 4-way bean at Clifton and Ludlow. Here's a quarter, get me a York peppermint patty to finish it off.

I really enjoyed this album from a band I’d never heard of. It reminded me a bit of Drive By Truckers. Musically it’s alt-country with some punk thrown in there to give it some bite. Lyrically the album seems to chart the course of a break up.

Indie folk rock. Heavier than some of its mid 2000s contemporaries. I really like it. Funeral Dress, the song, is just Teenage Kicks, isn't it? Rating: 4 Playlist track: Airborne Date listened: 04/09/24

Except for Neil Young and Afghan Whigs I don't care much for out of tune singing lead vocalists. And here we have two of them.

I don't know, man. It's another to file in the "indie rock" category, very nondescript and not distinct. Thought the point of user submissions was to move away from the norm, but alas, one man's trash etc. It's not bad I guess but I really don't care. Favorite tracks: Conversation Lags. Album art: A couple kissing on a haybale, or is it a hayrick? Some other third thing? Don't ask me, I'm not a farmer. 2.5/5

I went and listened to two more of their albums after this one. A very refreshing change of pace for having just finished the list. Thanks!

Funeral Dress rides and dies in dissolution. A debut record clearly the product of a single band, the use of different voices suggests theft or war. There's just enough noise to still play on the radio, enough discomfit to turn away a few. Obviously fine American rock.

This hits a lot of my favorite beats - kinda loose, not overproduced, rocky and not too serious with choruses you could find yourself humming without warning

I didn't dislike anything about this, but there was nothing that yanked it into the 5th star realm for me.

Not sure this adds much musically to 90s era indie rock sound, but it's solid, and gains point for variety and the effectiveness of the dual vocals.

This is so great. Rough-hewn but frequently gorgeous, with jangly arrangements and a hint of a burn. I'm really not a fan of Chuck Cleaver's vocals, but combined with Lisa Walker, the pair has an off kilter charm that's really engaging. Thanks so much for sharing. Fave Songs: Crooked, Funeral Dress, Humanbrained Horse, Don't Leave Just Now, Motorcycle, Soak It Up

liked this a lot more than I thought I would. some really nice different indie

I have a well documented soft spot for girl rock like what was on most of this album and I couldn’t resist this. 00s indie rock will some gems like airborne on here.

Really enjoyed this one.

I figured this was a mid-90s release, but I'm slightly surprised to find it came out after the turn-of-the-millennium. It's a pleasantly satisfying indie record, with some slacker-ish tendencies. I found myself, weirdly, enjoying every even-numbered track more than the odd-numbered ones. I love the dueling vocals and how they're not mixed to blend together perfectly. Feels like hanging out with your friends who are in a great band. Favorite tracks: "Funeral Dress", "Shunt", "Don't Leave Just Now"

I was into the lo-fi alt folk rock vibe, parts of it felt like something from the 80's athens georgia. Crooked, Motorcycle and Don't Leave Just Now were highlights that had me really enjoying the style. Good call out.

Pretty good band. Album was an easy listen and had a unique sound for the band. Would totally listen to again.

This is the kinda indie bullshit I like. Sometimes it hits and sometimes it doesn't. For whatever reason today this hit. Interestingly, sitting here in April 2025, we are seeing a return to the country-infused indie rock. My personal rating: 4/5 My rating relative to the list: 4/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

I wanna hold her, wanna hold her tight Get necro kicks right through the night ... Album sounds a lot like Eleventh Dream Day (nice!). Some Neil Young vibes on Crooked. Added to collection.

Funny how the opinion of "the dean of rock critics" and basically only Spin magazine helped to put this local American indie rock / indie folk act in the spotlight. The first side of *Funeral Dress* is sure filled with plenty of hooks and nice catchy tunes. The title-track rips off The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks" is VERY obvious ways, but when it's done artfully -- leading to an end result that still sounds authentic and entertaining -- theft can be worthy of praise, I guess. Too bad the LP clearly loses steam after its last stellar highlight "Crooked", though. Without the propulsive hooks of Wussy's best songs, the thin sound of the near-DIY-recording values and the anachronistic nineties tones become more apparent, unfortunately (I love the nineties, those were my formative years, but honestly, the second side is just "more of the same" to my ears). That said, there's so many tracks on its first half that I suspect I could find endearing in the long run that I want to give this record the benefit of the doubt as of now. And it's not as if the second side was made of terrible tracks either. 3.5/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums, rounded up to 4 8.5/10 for more general purposes (5 + 3.5) Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 18 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 31 (including this one) Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 61 By the way, I also browsed through Wussy's last album, released in 2024, and its sound was not only deeper, but the far more seasoned performances by the two male and female vocalists in the group made me think of Low circa *The Great Destroyer* and *C'mon* -- when the Duluth act were sounding the most straightforwardly "rock" during their perfect career. Which, coming from my mouth, can only be a compliment, of course. ------- Salut Émile, D'abord, désolé pour le retard, quand j'ai vu ta première réponse, j'étais en sortie pédagogique d'une semaine en Espagne avec des élèves, comme je crois te l'avoir dit. Et quand tu as envoyé ta seconde réponse sous le grand classique de Bowie, j'étais en formation à Athènes, et je devais consacrer beaucoup de temps à tout ce qui se passait là-bas, entre le stage et les visites. Et entre et après ces deux voyages, je devais AUSSI rattraper mon retard pour une grande partie de mon taf (qui n'est pas QUE donner des cours). Bon, en gros, c'est un mois pas comme les autres, et j'ai eu très peu de moments pour me poser. Ça me permet de répondre à une de tes questions, cette précision. Celle sur le temps que ça me prend de faire mes reviews toujours trop longues et académiques, ha ha! Ben ça dépend, en fait. Ça peut aller de vingt minutes à deux heures si j'ai l'impression de ne pas arriver à dire tout ce que j'ai envie de dire sur un disque. En vrai, pour une chronique "sérieuse" telle que celles que j'écris pour Mowno, ça peut me prendre jusqu'à quatre ou cinq heures. Même si une bonne moitié de ce temps est en fait consacrée à éditer et enlever des choses, paradoxalement. Pour ce générateur, j'écris comme ça me chante, à la truelle, et je me préoccupe rarement du style. Disons que faire ça m'évite de passer du temps sur des conneries sur le web. Pour ce qui est du processus d'écoute, je fais un premier passage de l'album le matin au lever, puis un second le soir, généralement (j'écris en même temps). Il m'arrive de zapper des milieux ou des fins de chansons lors d'une de ces deux écoutes, mais c'est rare en fait. Bon et puis, il y a les albums que je connais déjà, où c'est plus rapide. Même s'il y en a moins dans la users list (mais c'est ça qui est intéressant, aussi). Et toi ? C'est quoi le secret pour faire plus court et y aller le coeur léger (je ne fais jamais volontairement long, tu sais 😉). Mais surtout, c'est quoi ton processus d'écoute ? Questions fort intéressantes, ma foi. Sinon, tu as 24 ans ??? Marrant comment je pensais que tu étais plus vieux. Y a plein de fois où je m'imagine qu'un reviewer est de tel ou tel format et âge, et après je me dis: "mais en fait c'est ptet une personne totalement différente ?". Marrant de voir la confirmation de ça ici. A part ça, tu es designer graphique pour quel genre de site ou de produit ? Et tu joues de la basse dans un groupe ou vraiment juste pour déranger les voisins ? Et dans quel style ? Rock ou autre ? Autres réponses à tes questions: le code secret pour apprécier Radiohead, c'est de les voir comme les bardes de la solitude et de l'aliénation postmoderne, ainsi que de la mélancolie qu'elles inspirent. Et d'aimer les chansons aux constructions imparables et pourtant souvent barrées, ainsi que les voix d'anges torturés. Le tout décliné de façons très différentes d'un disque à l'autre. Thom Yorke a moins ma sympathie ces temps-ci, mais il y a plein de choses qui partent de son groupe pour moi. Avec The Bends et OK Computer, tu tiens déjà une bonne explication du truc. Kid A est le next level. Et In Rainbows permet de chiller en redescendant de ce sommet. Le reste est au moins un cran en dessous, pour une raison ou pour une autre. Reste sur ces deux-là en plus de ceux que tu as cité, et tu pigeras peut-être. Bon pour Sonic Youth et cette intw de Nardwuar qui part en cacahuète, tu mets le doigt sur un truc un peu malsain, c'est vrai. Mais, de très loin, j'ai jamais trop compris le délire de Nardwuar non plus. C'est un personnage ironique ou non? Le postmodernisme mène aussi à l'absurdité, faut croire. Mais tu peux peut-être m'expliquer le personnage.... Ce que je sais moi, très subjectivement, c'est que SY est un truc musical incroyable -- même s'il faut d'abord trouver la porte d'entrée qui te convient dans leur longue discographie. Et ça me paraît donc un peu réducteur de les ignorer juste pour ce moment pas glorieux et même franchement très con, je l'avoue. Pixies and Godspeed are music gods, enough said. Voilà, il est presque minuit chez moi, et faut vraiment que j'arrête là. Au plaisir de lire ta réponse. Deux semaines d'écart entre chaque message, ça te va ? (pour de vrai, cette fois !). Te sens pas obligé de répondre à toutes mes questions en une seule fois. On peut essayer de faire plus court pour cette correspondance aussi, et ça sera plus rapide et dynamique. Et j'essaie de checker ta prochaine réponse plus vite, promis ! Signé Cyril (mais tu peux m'appeler "Clément" si tu veux 😉)

It's not bad, it just feels a bit amateurish at times maybe? 3 stars.

An interesting choice that I'm glad I listened to, even if it didn't set my world alight.

Rating: 6/10 Best songs: Airborne, Crooked

It's okay indie guitar pop some light fuzzy rock. Male singer sings with a fairly high strained voice so not always easy to tell between male and female harmonising vocals. It feels like they're having fun.

Indie rock, country rock, alternative rock. Ni fu ni fa.

Nice!

not a bad indie rock album but I wouldn’t say it’s doing anything that hasn’t been done before it. None of the songs were that exceptional to me or had me thinking about how unique the sound was. It was really just middle of the road which for this list isn’t that bad but probably wouldn’t revisit. 6.1/10

Ágætis tónlist.

Great vocals, but these indie rock songs lack real quality.

Another fun folksy album, nothing to write home about but appreciate the addition.

Mid-aughts call back to the 90s

This would be just the thing to be listening to in a bar somewhere enjoying the evening with some friends.

Didn’t really get on with this one. Decent indie rock that reminded me a bit of Pixies if they just did the soft bits of their soft-loud dynamic. Nothing stood out to me much

An album out of time; fully 15 years later than I would have guessed from hearing it first. I enjoyed it, without ever finding the bit extra that would elevate it beyond 3 stars. Also, the title track is a transposed and slowed down version of Teenage Kicks - the fact they got away with it shows how little attention they must have gained outside of their hometown. And finally, they should absolutely never swear; neither singer has the accent for it, and it just sounds weird when they do.

Sweet

Yea, it was fine

Really rather enjoyed this one.

I was about to say that while I listened to this just yesterday, I have absolutely zero memory of it, but trying really hard to pluck up some memory, there actually are some flashes of recollection. The main one that comes up in amateurishness. The vocals especially had me wondering if it was a live gig, because surely no recording engineer or producer would have said "Yep, that's it, that is perfect!" and put them into the final mix? That being said, I liked the varied nature of it, and nothing really offended me. Just kinda feels like the sort of album that has a personal connection to the suggestor, rather than something that's going to change the world for anyone. Who knows, they might have excellent stage presence that doesn't really translate into a produced album. Either way - middle of the road for me.

Never heard of them. Not bad. Not overly original

Hot dang! I actually enjoyed this as it's sufficiently offbeat and interesting. I hear echoes from a multitude of other bands from Pixies to the Undertones (without Feargal's inimitable vocals). It's decidedly amateurly produced and feels genuine to me.

Cool vocal diversity, wide array of influences...

Nah... just nah, not interested. No more indie folk alternative please. 2/5.

Hmm, vocals don't always have to be in tune for music to still 'work'. But in this case for me it doesn't work. Does remind me of a somewhat mellow version of Dead Moon, although Dead Moon does work for me.

3 2

This one left me high and dry - the instrumentals are okay, if a bit generic indie, but the vocals are much too ramshackle and unfocused to bring everything together. The LP feels a little aimless and without a solid organizing principle.

It sounds like a great local 'scene' band, rather than a life changer. Solid stuff though.

Not much of anything. Forgettable alt-country.

Didn't quite hit it for me

Funeral Dress seems to get a lot of acclaim but I don't hear or feel it, it's all a bit twee, the singers aren't very good and regularly off key, it's not so much inspired by some legendary figures as it is a bit of a poor copycat of them. I dunno, it's not offensively bad but it's just another boring indie album that gets a 2/5.

It feels too indie, despite being contemporary it sounds quite seventies. Suddenly I went unnoticed.