4 out of 5

Label: Expert Work Records

Produced by: Bob Weston

Not judging a book by its cover – and however you would translate that to various mediums, such as music albums – is a lesson I think I’ve mostly learned by this point in my life, but you also (if you’re a mass consumer of whichever medium) have to have some systems in place for saying yea or nay to the next item on your list. With things that are more long term or time consuming, like books or comics, I’ll have a page / issue count by which I’ll say “not for me.” Movies I’ll generally give my time to – it’s generally passive; it’s maybe max three hours – but music can require a bit more of an ‘active’ participation, and, I’ve found, can change one’s opinion much more rapidly as you go through a song, or an album. Meaning: while I used to go for 2-3 songs before I made a judgement on something new, I now try to give a full, dedicated listen to something.

Reasons why include: Some Soviet Station’s sole, 2000 self-titled release.

My normal m.o. for random listens – this was not, but projecting back to that 2-3 song era – was to hunt used music bins and read through the bits and bobs of albums that looked interesting: checking song names, the label they were on, who worked on the thing, who they thanked. In all frankness, I doubt SSS would’ve passed the first visual inspection, as I would’ve written off the look as something emo-ish, calling to mind Jade Tree or Discord releases from its era. A glance at the credits would’ve shown me Bob Weston behind the boards, and I’d nod in approval; but if it made it home for a listen, that 2-3 songs criteria would’ve tanked it: our openers are exactly the crossroads of early 00s Jade Tree emo punk and fame-baiting Discord time-changey indie rock I had assumed. It’s totally not bad, it’s just the kind of stuff that I felt like wasn’t pushing any barriers for me.

Presently, I’m trusting in Expert Work Records, and they rereleased this thing (with a killer remaster by Carl Saff), and so I’m giving it a full spin. Those three openers are, as mentioned, not bad; the rest of the album kills, and after several listens, I have to consider this a purposeful move, or at least done purposefully in sequencing after the fact. Though, given the music zeitgeist of the 00s was more for the things I’m somewhat maligning, perhaps the idea was to lure folks in with the emo rock, then drop some post-rock intensity into the mix.

As I continue to talk around this thing instead of about it, I’m gonna throw a quizzical stare at this being a Georgia band. Expert Work is very much a Midwest-focused label, and the songs I’m praising are very much of a Midwest hardcore vibe, which uses time changes and low-end intensity of the NY / Chicago indie scene and applies it to something almost restrained; like hovering on the edge of grunge but intrigued by the possibilities of what else is out there. SSS is not grunge, they are much more punk than that, but the grooves in the bass and riffy grit from track 4 onward bring me right back to those 90s good times.

Not that Georgia is without its share of rock, of course, but my brain goes to Elephant 6 fuzz or the artsier heft of Deerhoof; in my limited awareness of the GA scene, Some Soviet Station would have – and still does – stand out.

The vocals from Chris McNeal and Jesse Smith are of the nasal register that initially marks this thing as emo; I’d say the biggest shift after the initial songs is in putting more emphasis on the music than the vocals. Again, it’s pretty immediate: you hear hooks right as “The Process” starts, whereas before, the music has the kind of wandering buzz of Discord math-rockers from the time – busy, intricate, but not necessarily catchy. I mean, I’m not making up that the songs get longer at this point as well, accounting for the way they stretch out, and have bridges, and hit hard on climaxes. This puts the band on par with standouts from the Discord club like Fugazi, but there’s still more focus here than that: there are mentions of At The Drive-In on the hype sticker; Drike Like Jehu; both apt, but there’s something about SSS’ comparative linearity that really makes the back 3/4ths of the album special. It’s just an impressive marriage of all the punk / hardcore adjacent styles from the time, plucking out the more challenging elements and bringing them together for six amazing tracks. And yes, that’s plenty to make the more standard emo lead-in worth the listen.