4 out of 5

Label: Communion

Producer: Greg Freeman

So what about you, do you listen to TFUL282?  What is it, exactly, that makes us like them so?  ‘Cause lemme tell ya’, the sloppy, mucky mess of those early Matador albums doesn’t make sense… 20+ tracks of outro pop and Feller Filler… and yet we got in to it, and I guess there were some Pavement comparisons, and the band kept evolving and putting out better and better albums, all while maintaining the completely tolerable weirdness, just finding the line to prevent things from becoming too Zappa-y or whatever other influence is bubbled in there.

If you don’t listen to TFUL282, this actually isn’t a bad album to start with.  Along with ‘Strangers From the Universe,’ it’s definitely the most listenable, with hooks happening in tracks right away before they spiral off into bonkers.  This is even better than that disc, though, thanks to the amazing variance from track to track (TFUL is totally a mixed bag of music, but the sorta sloppy crunchy rock they deliver did / does form a particularly recognizable blend of sounds.  This started to get spread out by the almost epic ‘I Hope it Lands.’), whereas ‘Strangers’ would sort of lurch from recognizable to blending together during its runtime.  There’s no real reference for the music, but that they appeared on Matador in the early 90s is an indication – lo-fi indie rock.  Where Thinking Fellers stood apart was in their willingness to… not have an identity in a way.  Lyrics come to the fore as oddly pointed or silly, and you’ll get struck by the utter complexity of compositions that are delivered off the cuff, but it’s always come across as a group effort, somehow unified in their ability to sound unplanned and yet practiced at the same time.  So it’s a refreshing step away from the sometimes cloying nature of indie music, being both loose and polished enough to avoid slotting in with any other particular grouping of bands.

And ‘Bob Dinners’ has so many great moments.  The opening bouncy riff of ‘Another Clip’ is energizing, leading into the falsetto weirdness of ‘Sno Cone’ that’s at once silly and yet, eh, sweet?  ‘You in a Movie’ is creepy goodness, and the Feller Filler – little short snippets between tracks – doesn’t slow the disc down here, instead actually feeling like linking moments that properly give us a pause between the assault of noise variations.  Also – Greg Freeman’s best production with the group so far, hands down.  So many instruments sprinkled into the background, the drums and guitars actually separate elements and the alternating vocal styles always mixed at the right level to sell the delivery.  It’s also fascinating that several riffs / musical themes repeat on the disc but in a completely different context, lending the album an overall unified feeling that’s missing from the majority of their work.

Alas, though with a band like this you’ll allow for a lot of experimentation, its nonetheless a letdown at the very end of the album when we tail off into repetitive quiet.  ‘The Barker’ and ‘He Keeps Himself Fed’ both start out boldy but descend into minimalism, the latter track stretching on for ten minutes.  One of these tracks would’ve worked in that same way that anything else on ‘Dinners’ does, but the songs back to back make the last few minutes a bit of a trudge.

I keep praying for another album.  Not that the band has ever had anything to prove or improve upon, per se, but TFUL282 carved out such an original corner that even something as fun as this album isn’t enough.  Maybe… in a few years…