5 out of 5

Produced by: Kim Deal

Label: Touch and Go

We should only rate this lower for being way too short.

The first Touch and Go release for Brainiac, perhaps we should also rate this lower for being frikkin’ awesome and thus giving me high expectations for followup Hissing Prigs, which was only… okay.  On Internationale, we get it all, and all is good: Tim Taylor / Jon Schmersal eeky-ooky freakouts in opener Go Freaks Go; sound and samples manipulations turned into spooky songcraft via Silver Iodine; and a spacey, more patient rocker – Simon Says – that proved the group could deliver excellence without having to go sub-3-minutes on the song length.  Kim Deal proves to be a good production match, well aware of how to make a lotta noise and layers stack up well and sound damned fine together.

More Bonsai Superstar than Prigs, you’re welcome to view this as something of an addendum to the former, but maybe don’t do that else you pee yer pants in excitement.