on a revisit, this record is pretty great. driving DCish rock from atlanta. i have to say that while the 7"s that came prior to this were fast favorites, this lp blew them out of the water. sadly they went on to do a few 7"s and a second lp that were pretty boring and lacking in overall intensity.
i saw them on several occasions while living in atlanta around this time and it was always a good time, well, until the weird british accent came into the singing.
The Hal al Shedad "The Hal al Shedad" 1997
7 comments:
Thanks for this one! Great album, indeed.
And I like your idea of a blog dedicated to 90s hc, it seems like something I've been looking for. For some reasons I missed many good bands in the past but there's allways good time for great music... so let's make some revival! Good luck with your blog :)
Personally, I've always thought the (early) 7"s were way better than any album they ever put out. The music started to become less technically interesting, and just overall worse the longer they went on (imo).
The 7"s were so darn tight, but this album is pretty flawless. It was my favorite release of that year I think.
You're absolutely right. Ben's faux accent (not to mention his overly pretentious microphone) were grating, but fortunately they cranked out some stellar shows before they kinda floundered.
i saw their last show, at echo lounge, with sam prekop and papa m.
a few of the performances ended up on the singles comp, which believe me blows both lps out of the water.
to me the first lp suffered from the recording tactics of alop, who also kinda dulled the effects of the van pelt's "sultans of sentiment." i used to have a tape of them playing Live at WREX that is devastating.
then the second record got into slint-y, quiet stop-start action.. i like some of those tunes, but there were a lot of bands doing a much better job with that style.
SOOOO true about the emergence of the dumbass british accent. but an oft-overlooked, awesome band.
The British accent was pretty funny. I love not only this album but its work. I can't remember the folks that did it, but they worked with a few other bands. I think their group was called 'Apartment...' something. 13, maybe?
I just found your blog today. I have their other full-length if you want it - ripped with EAC and LAME 3.97 (-alt preset extreme, vbr 2, 160-320kbps range).
Looking forward to more. I should post the Airoes albums I have. It is a pretty neat project by Jeph, formerly of Portrait.
philip dwyer of "apartment 13" (not sure if he works under that name anymore) laid out most the artwork for hal al shedad. both full lengths and some of the 7"s.
you will also recognize that he was the singer in inkwell. from the excellent inkwell/hal al shedad split 7" -- if anyone is interested i have an interview with him that i did back in late 90's early 2000's for an issue of my zine that never came out.
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