Wait, I AM a cranky reviewer. So I ask again: WHY DON'T YOU TWO DROP GOON MOON AND WHATEVER ELSE AND MAKE ANOTHER CLASSIC M-M-M-MATH ALBUM?
Look guys, I can wait all day for another answer; I'm a very patient man. Yeah? Think so? Try me!
..........................................[still waiting]……………………………........................
Alright FINE, I give up; Hella may or may not put their heads together for another math-ridden mind-fuck full-length in the near future, but Acoustics is a great chew toy in lieu of a tubby sirloin. It doesn't seem prudent to call these versions stripped down, seeing that only two people — two geniuses, mind you — created these compositions in the first place, but there's no other way to describe the proceedings. Drummer Zach Hill still 'bangs,' 'pows,' and 'thwaps' at his skins like a comic book character, this time using lighter sticks, possibly rute brushes. Guitarist Spencer Seim still slinks up and down his fretboard with a deft savvy that makes up for his technical shortcomings, this time plucking a much cleaner, softer axe that couldn't cut through a chunk of heated lard.
Don't expect these six tracks to jump out at you when you pull the cheesecloth away. It doesn't reveal anything about the tandem we didn't already know, nor does it cast the songs in a drastically different light. It's just the Hella we remember, switched up a little. Acoustics is a nice dish for those of us with fork-and-knife in hand, ready to dine on a squeaky new spazz-rock swine, but those fixing a casual gaze upon Seim and Hill will do best to wait for a new LP.
1. 1-800-Ghost Dance
2. Women of the 90's
3. Cafeteria Bananas
4. Biblical Violence
5. Welcome to the Jungle Baby, You're Gunna Live!
6. The Devil Isn't Red
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