I never got around to voting on this album, so it's been interesting to read back through the thread as I give it a couple of
anniversary listens.
I know that a lot of people, not just keywhiz, write off the tunes on this album as
2vN leftovers, but I think they stand on their own. Sure, there are one or two B-listers—I think you can actually say that about almost every SD album—but no throwaways. The top of the order, right on through the clean-up batter, is killing, and I’d put “The Last Mall,” “Godwhacker,” and the title track right up there with the best entries in the Dan canon. (Okay: it’s a big canon.)
I don’t know that the mix is exactly set-it-and-forget-it, either. I mean, I’m sure that by this point, Scheiner had settled on a basic template for how best to handle this band. But he does move some things around from track to track, too; I especially like the ones where he puts guitars in the back, one in each corner. And in almost every song there’s some subtle “
detail from a well-defined spot” to be surprised by: a whispery background vocal, a little accent or fillip on keyboard or guitar emerging from one of the rears. Then there’s the complex interplay between the various background and lead vocals on “Blues Beach.” (Scheiner really gets antiphony in general, whether it's between voices or, as on "The Last Mall," between lead vocal and lead guitar.) And the high point of the album for me is “Godwhacker,” where the mesmerizing guitar figure that anchors the tune in the left rear is complemented first by rhythm guitar in the right rear and, eventually, Becker’s solo in the fronts. There’s some crazy counterpoint there; at times it starts to sound like a Fela Kuti arrangement or something off of
Remain in Light. Great grooves on this album overall, actually.
Anyway: hard for me not to give this a "10."
