Neutral Milk Hotel

On Every Island (Merge)
by Chris Adams

Journalistically inappropriate as it may seem, when you’re reviewing rock and roll records, after a while you can pretty much judge the book by its cover. It’s just the predictable nature of the “eat ’em up and grind ’em out” music industry, which ritually sacrifices the elements of surprise and originality for the sake of unit-shifting demographic recognizability/association (and that’s just with the album cover art!).

One look at the Neutral Milk Hotel CD and I thought oh fuck, lemme guess – another earnest piece of sensitive power-pop fluff from nowheresville just begging for the bargain bin. Luckily, when you’re reviewing rock and roll records, every once in a while you’re wrong. On Every Island is a remarkable album by this group who, to my knowledge, no one’s ever heard of. Their acoustic/electric, fuzz-heavy, ramshackle sound combined with a great sense of melody recalls none other than the mighty Flaming Lips (in a kindred spirit kinda way, rather than just a shallow ripoff). And, as with the Flaming Lips, there’s plenty of little experimental weirdness that manages to intrigue rather than intimidate. The off-kilter, out-of-it vocals are vaguely reminiscent of Syd Barrett, a perfect match for lyrics like “Swallow all the halos out of you,” and “I want to shoot all the superheroes from your sky.” If nothing else, this album is a great way to introduce hardcore Beck fans (if, in fact, any exist) to the pleasures of psychedelic pop. This is one of the (very) few CDs I won’t sell this weekend.