I never talk about this stuff anymore, but I have been moved for some
reason today.
My opinion is that SDRE needs to be minimally produced. Their best
sounding work is, certainly (in this opinion), songs produced by Brad Wood
on LP2. Songs such as "Friday" and the re-recorded "8" are not layered
with millions of guitars, etc. What happens in those songs is that the
great songwriting comes forth. TRT, while wonderfully thick and warm,
suffers from a general lack of spunk. Having seen them twice on the TRT
tour, I noticed that songs such as "Killed by an Angel" and
"Disappear" totally f#*%ing rock. It amazed me so profoundly at their
live performances for the TRT tour because it was so RAW. SDRE needs to
be raw, not overraught. Unfortunately, HIFTBSO is produced so POORLY
(with certain exceptions: "Days Were Golden", "Guitars and Video Games")
that the minimalist production deters from the musicality.
For my money, the best thing the band has ever done is Jeremy's solo
CD. And I cannot for the life of me understand how Greg Williamson
would so perfectly capture that sparse, oblique tone so well on that
album, and so poorly fail at it with HIFTBSO. Frog Queen gets better
every year.
Best,
Phil
