The Sound

Top 5 Seattle Albums of 1994

yikes sorry for the delay on #3 the webring is after me will upload tomorrow fight the power acab etc.

#4: The Bilks, The Worst of The Bilks

I know, I know. Faithful readers will remember I spent the better part of ’92 railing against railing against the Hammer Horror excess of Eternal Lovers. And I stand by that—if your name isn’t Lux Interior or Glenn Danzig, you shouldn’t be singing about mummy boyfriends. But I guess losing lead singer Acid V to the inferior coast knocked the fake vampire teeth right out of them, because the newly-rechristened Bilks have gone on to be one of the heaviest, filthiest bands to hit The Sound since Melvins.

Thankfully, this year they finally got their act together enough to collect all their short run singles, throw them in with a few absurdist new jams, and release The Worst Of…—and frankly, I’m grateful. Not since Joy Division became New Order has a band been so completely revitalized by losing a singer.

The sheer sludge of hyper-distorted opener “F*** Crab” is like a trial by mud—9 minutes of dueling basslines, hoarse shrieks, and a full on tom-based assault. When it was released as two parts of a 7” it felt like a joke. Here on a CD, in its full glory, it feels like art. The rest of the album follows suit, with a cohesion that belies its origins (it doesn’t hurt that The Bilks have, let’s say, a narrow stylistic range). And the new songs are a fantastic peek into what could be next for the band. “Burnt Remains'' especially shows that the gothic pomp of their past never completely went away—it just got louder.

Frankly, between this album and Girls Against Boys' Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby,I'm starting to think two-bassist bands are the wave of the future. But next week, we're getting a blast from the past—one so controversial in the Seattle scene that it'll probably get me kicked from the webring >:)

#5: Every Single Debra, We Are the F***s You Could Not Give

Dear reader, poetry is dead. It’s been dead ever since Bob Dylan converted and started making nursery rhyme albums, ever since a bunch of hairsprayed misogynists sang the line “Every rose has its thorn” and rocketed to the top of the charts. Your harried reviewer made peace with this long ago, when she moved to Seattle and decided the next great thing in art was a bunch of dirty weirdos wearing t-shirts over long sleeves.

But every so often a band comes around that pierces through the 20 layers of jade around my heart and gets me feeling things again, and in the year of our lord 1994 that band was Every Single Debra.

When ESD debuted last year with the Modern Dance and Other Fables EP I brushed them off as yet another anglophilic jangle pop wanna-be. But never let it be said that I can’t change, because We Are the F***s You Could Not Give immediately earned itself a place in the top five the moment it dropped in February. Maybe I’m getting soft, reader, but when lead singer MT belts “No one you look up to/is better than you are” on the title track, I don’t just feel him, I believe him.

And it doesn’t hurt that the band has finally dropped their Johnny Marr worship for a thicker, more ramshackle warmth, like Sweetheart of the Rodeo fed through a woodchipper. Guitarist Ally Oops has ditched her chorus amp for a distortion pedal, playing with decidedly amateurish raunch that seems to say that while MT cares a lot, the rest of the band couldn’t care less. It’s a riveting clash of ideals, and the aftermath is one of the most exciting albums I’ve heard all year.

We're just getting started, folks. Tune in next week for #4