3 out of 5

Produced by: ?

Label: K / Rebel Beat Factory

Scrappy as all get out, Sam Jayne’s first post-Lync album as Love as Laughter partially indicates the eventual rock and roll direction into which LAL would settle (as a group – Greks being more of a solo joint), but it’s moreso rooted in the K records loosey goosey mindset, erring toward Sad Sappy Sucker-ish lo-fi noisers.  And so to a certain extent one’s mileage is going to vary based on how tolerant they are of a dude chanting nonsense over single-tracked skronk.  Jayne also somewhat bravely kicks things off with the wall-of-guitar It’s Only Lena, a near impenetrable three minutes as you wait for a beat to drop which never comes; it’s another wandering track (or two) before we get to the delightfully Pavementy Keep Your Shade.  The success rate at this point may have you wondering how Jayne survived to put out some pop rock masterpieces later in LAL’s catalogue… but the cadence thereafter settles into about one raw rock track (a la The Supernatural Sessions vibe) per experimental one, and then the second time through, that Lena song suddenly becomes a lot more listenable.  Once your ears are adjusted to the demo tape quality, the instincts that produced those later brilliant albums become more apparent, and Greks proves to be oddly listenable, more consistent in its brashness than the follow up #1 USA.

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There’s a Rebel Beat Factory edition of this that combines the multi-part tracks into one, notably adding all of the untitled stuff onto the end of the slightly “If I Ever Need / Someone Like You.” After that, we get the nearly 11-minute long “Mylovelyradiophile1-4,” which I can’t find any information on, but sounds like extended takes of the experimental noise Untitled tracks. It’s not all continuous – it’s again in snippets, and some of them might be the same snippets as the Untitleds, but there are some longer sections. Is it worth tracking down for this addition? …No? I mean, I think I would’ve preferred a single take of this as a bonus track in general, but unless the noise extras at the end of this disc were your favorite parts, I’m not sure you’re missing much. That’s not to discredit owning this as a document of sorts, but I don’t think LaL were necessarily pursuing experimental art here, so much as just making and recording some noise.