BAND OF OUTSIDERS
Revisiting the revamped back catalogue of ‘90s indie contenders Archers of Loaf
Published: August 15, 2012 http://www2.the-burg.com/entertainment/music/
UNDERGROUND
HEROES: The Archers thrived on controlled chaos and skewed hooks .
|
From
1993, when they got off to a promising start with their debut album on the now
defunct but then rather hip indie label Alias, until their break up just five
years later, with four solid full-lengths under their collective belt, North
Carolina's Archers of Loaf were more or less permanently stuck somewhere just
shy of a mainstream breakthrough. A band of outsiders with indie cred and a
sound that split the difference between the serrated edge of Nirvana grunge and
the skewed slacker smarts of Pavement, the Archers were a perennial insiders’
favorite for most likely to succeed. . . next time. But next time never arrived,
and the band quietly disbanded, leaving frontman Eric Bachmann with an
intensely loyal cult following of fans more than willing to follow him onto
somewhat rootsier, if no less challenging, musical terrain with his de-facto
solo project Crooked Fingers, an endeavor that's proven to be a more
comfortable fit for the coarse-voiced, idiosyncratic romantic than the more
collaborative clamor that embodied the Archers.
For those of us who believed in the
Archers, reveled in the controlled chaos and hyperactive hooks of their best
songs, and hoped in vain for the one big single that might put them over the
top, it's been gratifying to see Bachmann blossom into a formidable
singer-songwriter with Crooked Fingers, as he's tapped into a broader audience
that encompasses a segment of the Americana crowd. And, in retrospect, the very
idea of Archers of Loaf as a "mainstream" band, while amusing, now
seems fairly absurd. They weren't Weezer, or even Nada Surf (for those of you
who remember their short-lived tenure at the top of the pops). Neat and tidy
singalong choruses just weren't an Archers’ specialty. And Bachmann was no more
comfortable with tongue-in-cheek irony than he was with feigned sincerity.
While Stephen Malkmus was happy to openly
poke fun at alt-rock megastars Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots in the
last verse of Pavement’s classic "Range Life," Bachmann had a more
nuanced take on the state of affairs in alternative nation circa ’95.
"They caught and drowned the frontman/Of the world's worst rock and roll
band," he hoarsely intones in the opening lines of "The Greatest of
All Time," a dystopian allegory about the nature of post-Nirvana rock
stardom that builds to the blustery chant, "The underground is
overcrowded."
At the time, it was one of the more keen,
if subtle, observations about what transpires when it suddenly becomes
fashionable to be unfashioned and a fist-pumping arena-rock band like STP feel
the need to gild their bio with a story about meeting at a Black Flag show, as
if they too were part of some mythically cool "underground." At
least, that's how I read it. And, as a devastatingly accurate one liner, it
resonates to this day.
Archers
of Loaf, All the Nations Airports
(Remastered) (Merge)
|
With Crooked Fingers, Bachmann has found a home at Merge
Records, a North Carolina indie that's both big enough to reach out to his
gradually growing fanbase, and homegrown enough to accommodate his musical
eccentricities. Indeed, Merge probably would have been a perfect fit for the
Archers back in the day. So it's no small consolation that the rights to the
Archers' back catalog now rest with Merge, who just put the finishing touches
on a fairly elaborate reissue campaign that includes expanded versions of all
four of the band's studio albums. To mark the recent completion of the project
—the revamped versions of All the Nations
Airports and White Trash Heroes, the band's final two
albums, came out last week — the Archers are even playing a few select reunion
shows through the end of August.
Archers
of Loaf, White Trash Heroes (Remastered)
(Merge)
|
In too many cases, the “deluxe,” “remastered” reissue with new
liner notes and photos, and a few bonus tracks has become something of a bad
joke that reeks of a last gasp attempt by the record industry to squeeze a bit
more cash out of the CD market before the current business model collapses. But
Merge has done a particularly admirable job of bringing back into print
relevant titles by compelling artists who were never quite popular enough for a
larger label to invest in. Mostly recently, along with the complete Archers of
Loaf catalog, Merge has re-released crucial, formative, and otherwise unavailable
material by Dinosaur Jr. and by Sugar, a trio fronted by Hüsker Dü
singer/guitarist Bob Mould in the ’90s.
It’s comforting to have these albums back in the proverbial
record-store bin, if only because so much of what continues to bubble up from
the overcrowded underground owes more than a little to the above-mentioned artists.
(Upon hearing a 1992 Sugar single for the first time, a friend of mine
remarked, somewhat incredulously, “This is exactly what Foo Fighters sound
like.”) In the case of the Archers of Loaf, it’s particularly gratifying to
have their albums back, complete with revamped artwork and each with a bonus CD
of mostly demos and b-sides, because Bachmann has continued to grow
artistically and has found a sustainable niche that continues to expand. With
the benefit of hindsight, you can see how he was working toward what would
become Crooked Fingers on All the Nations
Airports and White Trash Heroes, specifically
on what are essentially solo tracks like “Chumming the Ocean,” a poignant track
from “Airports” where he accompanies himself on piano and sounds like he’s
choking on his own voice as he spins a poetic yarn about a drowned fisherman.
“The deep is in riot,” he sings, “The coastline is quiet/Asleep and divided in
bands/While beer halls all revel/Drunk and disheveled/Helplessly wading/The
diver is down.”
More typical are bash-and-pop rockers like the churning “Strangled
by the Stereo Wire,” the rush and churn of hammered drums and buzzing guitars
offsetting Bachmann’s characteristically dark visions. And then there are those
tracks, like the intriguingly melodic, cleverly titled “After the Last Laugh,”
that maybe coulda been hit single material, if only Bachmann had dialed back
the darkness and discord a notch or two. But then, Archers of Loaf wouldn’t
have been Archers of Loaf. And that would have been a shame.
No comments:
Post a Comment