Archers of Loaf

An album that finds the band perfecting their rallying cries for the young and bored (one tune's even called "Underachiever's March and Fight Song") and slowly reaching for something new on more atmospheric tracks such as "Step Into the Light." Even if the noise rockers are more successful, the more ambitious cuts lend the album a weight the band's debut lacks.

Boasting the indie hit "Web in Front," Icky Mettle (1993) provoked comparisons to Pavement
and the Replacements and thrust this foursome to the top of the Chapel Hill, N.C., heap.
Vee Vee's twisted tunefulness stamps it as representative of that scene, but these boys are
stranger than most of those bands. Weirdo song titles ("Underachievers March and Fight
Song," "Let the Loser Melt") and lyrics stuffed with quips ("the underground is ov... More >

Eric Bachmann's pissed-off, speechlike yowl-to-croak isn't as callow or pop as Stephen Malkmus's demented, speechlike croon-to-whine, but their bands share an aural gestalt: tuneful two-guitar breaks that set off unkempt explosions before recombining in brief climaxes soon interrupted by more disarray. The Archers trace the agitated melodies and off guitar to the Replacements, as if the clamor Bob Stinson unloosed by accident and spirit possession was instead planned out by former sax major Bachmann and axe-wielding bad boy Eric Johnson. With Paul Westerberg an adept of the realistic popsong and the Archers' titles so gnomic they forget them themselves, I resisted this notion until the show where I caught myself shouting out a whole utterly comprehensible stanza: "They caught and drowned the front man/Of the world's worst rock and roll band/He was out of luck/Because nobody gave a f*ck/The jury gathered all around the aqueduct/Drinking and laughing and lighting up/Reminiscing just how bad he sucked/Singin' throw him in the river/Throw him in the river/Throw him in the river/Throw the bastard in the river." (Grade - A)