Bubble & Scrape

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This mainstay of '90s indie rock didn't manage a consistently listenable record until their fourth try in 1993, two years after Nevermind, so the youth were going gaga over grunge. (Fortunately for the trio, this album enticed Sub Pop, a bigger label than the penny-pinching Homestead; its superior sound quality and marketing helped gain a larger audience, anyway.) Recorded in a slaughterhouse, Bubble & Scrape took 1991's III's improved focus and spread it over a whole LP. That's impressive, given that founder/drummer Eric Gaffney was barely present and would soon quit (until 2007's reunion tour). Good thing bassist Jason Lowenstein shouldered a greater load, writing and singing equal to ex-Dinosaur Jr. staple Lou Barlow, who himself was coming into his own. Gaffney still contributes six atonal-racket, anti-pop Sonic Youth-like numbers (welcome variety), but Lowenstein and Barlow demonstrate an abiding jones for bitingly catchy passages. In particular, for every "Sacred Attention" Barlow offers in the mode of III's hot "The Freed Pig," he now sprinkles lovelorn folk-ditty laments, such as the opening, gripping "Soul and Fire." Meanwhile Lowenstein's "Happily Divided" and "Sixteen" proffer loud, hard adrenalin pop. Bubble & Scrape thus points toward greater brilliance: Gaffney's superior successor Bob Fay would kick 1994's Bakesale and 1996's Harmacy into gear, earning nearly universal critical kudos. But start here! [The 2008 reissue adds 15 demos and studio tracks, including a B-side cover of Maumee, Ohio thrashers the Necros' "Reject."]

© Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover /TiVo