OK, so I’m a few hours late to the party on this one. But I have
an excuse, namely the fact that the Violets’ eminently
forgettable 2002 debut, 44 Down, was as uninspired a
piece of derivative dream-pop as the Pacific Northwest has ever
produced. But with a few downloads to burn on my Emusic
subscription, I decided to give the band another chance — and
somehow found myself rewarded by a shockingly wonderful record,
one with an inside track to make my year-end Top Ten list.
Shoegazer dream-pop can be a frustratingly inconsistent genre.
Many of the celebrated vanguard acts from the early ’90s were
woefully overrated (names withheld to preempt hate mail), while
mostly it was the bands nobody heard of who were quietly
releasing the style’s finest material (For Against, The Lassie
Foundation), leaving untalented copycats jousting over the
scraps. That’s what makes To Where You Are such a
revelation. The High Violets have done no less than work a
miracle here, resurrecting a lamented genre many say died for
good when Lush folded up shop years ago. The Violets’ driving
guitar and danceable beats are like mental safaris, and the
seraphic Kaitlyn Ni Donovan, with her absurdly magnificent
evocations of forlorn loss, may just be my new favorite female
vocalist. Even the requisite instrumental “Nocturnal” shines,
furnishing the record’s spiraling backbone. The result is an
album that has insidiously slithered its way up my playlist in
record time, to the point where it’s begun crowding out
everything else. Honestly, I just can’t get enough of it.
Artist: The Judybats
Album:Down in the Shacks Where the Satellite Dishes
Grow
Released: October 1991
Label: Sire
Online Track to Try: “Witches’ Night”
Granted Judybats lead singer Jeff Heiskell never lived up to his
potential, and maybe his band did burn through half a dozen
incarnations between 1989 and 2000, never quite finding an
audience. But none of that takes away from the outright
scintillation found on 1991’s Down in the Shacks, one of
the prettier albums to emerge from the alterna-rock universe
prior to the mythic grunge-rock detonation a few months later.
That’s not to say Shacks isn’t a product of its
pre-Nirvana time. The controlled mania of ’80s post-punk having
run its course, many college bands of the era succumbed to the
temptations of the more sophisticated and lucrative “adult”
market, and the Judybats were no exception. But while undeniably
a trip down jangly Smiths lane, there’s a lot more going on here
than mere adulation or cheap mimicry. This is a busy record,
each tune bursting with imaginative harmonies and chord changes,
and despite its polished finesse waxes lively from start to
finish. Heiskell’s nasal twang rides the haunting
acoustically-tinged music high and low, and his pitch varies
like a branch of fluttering leaves. In fact after 15 years it’s
probably Heiskell’s adroit vocals that stick most -- they boast
the kind of note-shy versatility that genuinely rewards multiple
listens. As a bonus there’s even a Kinks cover on here, 1968’s
“Animal Farm,” which while not appending much to Ray Davies’
version does mesh well with the rest of the record. Admittedly,
no self-respecting 1990s time capsule really needs more than one
Judybats album squirreled away inside it. But this one’s a gem.
