I have had this album for a long time but have been a little bit scared about reviewing it. In some ways I’m also scared about even listening to it too much. Why? Because it is super bummed-out and not exactly a one to positively alter your mood if you are not too prone to positive moods in the first place. Also because it is quite wonderful, and I almost worry that in listening to it too much its magic might wane or evaporate or become somehow commonplace. So instead I just take furtive, chancing gulps of it. Like stealing sweets at an elderly relative’s house or swigging crafty mouthfuls of scotch from your parents’ liquor cabinet before you went out as a teenager. And in this way it retains all the vitality and wonder that it would probably have retained even if I played it to death and wore out the grooves. Silly, really, but this is how it has been going on for some time. The music itself is all kinds of ugly-beautiful. The clumping spectre of early Swans looms large, as do the woozy, confused tones of mid-to-late-80s Sonic Youth. At times it sounds like Pissed Jeans played at half speed, or Angel Hair similarly slowed and drug-destroyed. The songs are stoned and awkward and awful and listlessly beautiful. They’re even better than the ones on that earlier 12″ that I didn’t review for reasons as stupid as the ones outlined above. It’s still one of the best things I’ve heard for quite some time. I should probably suck up my vague fears and paranoias and listen to it far more often.