CODEINE

Another fine box set for another fine obscure band (and, again, only about 20 years after the fact).  Pitchfork seems to me to usually be a diletente-ish bunch of wankers who rejoice in tearing down music that doesn’t meet their exacting standards, but the reviewer for this particular release got it right.  Kudos.

The Slint comparison is dead-on, but personally I always saw them as a slowcore Nirvana with those molasses tempos and that quiet/loud thang.  The box set is very generous, a bunch of rarities , live cuts, radio sessions and whatnot, but the quality of most of the demos, from what I recall, is pretty awful.  The finished versions of these songs is definitely where it’s at.

The White Birch hit me like a ton of bricks when I first bought it.  My girlfriend at the time had the flu, I seem to recall it being early summer, I was generally very unhappy with my life, but it was making for some very good writing.

I bought Panic On by Madder Rose the same day I bought The White Birch.  The White Birch is still in my heavy rotation list, Panic On was sold to a used CD store a few weeks after I picked it up.  Such is life.