album by The Breeders
I somehow made it through the entire 1990s without owning a Breeders album. Listening to Pod, that feels like a huge mistake.
Their debut already has so much of what makes them special. There’s indie rock, noise, pop and the beginnings of what would soon explode into grunge. The guitars can squeal and scrape, but the music is rarely muddy. There’s usually a melody underneath the noise, and Josephine Wiggs’ bass is a real highlight throughout.
The lyrics are another matter. They can be minimalist, abstract and surreal, filled with strange images. Songs could send my mind down several paths without ever making me confident I’d found the right one.
“Glorious” opens with a slow rhythmic crawl as guitars squeal into the song. It’s dark and sinister. Deal keeps insisting that “it’s glorious,” but nothing about the song makes me believe that. Something painful is hiding underneath.
“Doe” is much brighter. The guitar bounces, the vocals harmonize while sounding just slightly off from each other, and suddenly the Breeders’ pop instincts are right there. But even this one doesn’t feel entirely safe. The repeated use of “salty” gives the song this visceral quality that immediately makes me think of taste and skin, while references to tripping suggest drugs and a relationship that may be heading somewhere darker.
Their cover of the Beatles’ “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” takes a song that originally travels through several different moods and makes it darker and angrier. I think I might actually prefer it to the Beatles version.
“Oh!” is the first really strange departure. A violin wanders through the arrangement while Deal gives one of the rawest vocals on the album. The lyrics make me picture someone lost in a giant city, feeling about the size of an insect that could be crushed at any moment.
“Hellbound” is just a monster. The bass line is insane. The whole thing bounces forward toward a chorus that sounds almost like an anthem.
“When I Was a Painter” can pull back and then suddenly blow up. The lyrics sound like the end of a relationship without necessarily being melodramatic about it.
“Fortunately Gone” is almost ridiculously sweet by comparison. It’s short, light, breezy and incredibly catchy, with these beautiful vocals bouncing along over the music. But because this is Pod, you can’t accept that at face value. The Breeders have made a wonderfully fun pop song that had me wondering what terrible thing had happened.
“Iris” is one of the most sonically interesting songs on the album because it travels. It gets heavy. It drags. It scratches and claws. At times it’s almost uncomfortable to listen to, which fits lyrics that sound intensely physical.
“Opened” takes another sharp turn. The drums provide the thrust while the vocal becomes almost spoken word. It’s dark and eerie, with images of being trapped in a basement and eventually flying free. It feels like a David Lynch film has suddenly been dropped into the middle of the album.
“Only in 3’s” is short and stark, but there’s a great bounce underneath it and the song gradually burns toward its ending. It appears to be about a threesome, with the people involved almost reduced to physical sensations or strange archetypes.
“Lime House” comes roaring back with some of the album’s catchiest indie rock. The groove is fantastic, and when it gets to the chorus, it’s just fire. Absolute fire. References to black tar and the surreal, trippy lyrics give the whole thing a drug-fueled feeling.
“Metal Man” slows everything down into something resembling an acoustic duet, with conversational, almost spoken lyrics. Then the song suddenly explodes into a frenzy before dropping right back down again.
There’s a lot of sex and physical intimacy running through Pod, but the Breeders never present it as particularly titillating. Instead, they’re funny, grimy and remarkably nonchalant about sex without ever seeming interested in turning themselves into objects of fantasy.
Bodies are allowed to be pleasurable, uncomfortable, gross and strange.
The Breeders can give you a killer bass line, a huge chorus or an almost perfect little pop song and then turn around and make something that scratches, claws or barely resembles conventional rock.
There is weirdness inside the pop songs. Melody inside the noise.
I always considered the Breeders as rock stars.
Pod just confirms that.
Verdict: Great
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