Sea Hags

Despite the two cities' widely divergent musical cultures, several Seattle-bred musicians ( 's , bassist singer , etc.) found fame and fortune after transforming themselves into glamorous, Hollywood stars; but not the . Maybe their mistake was stopping short while driving down the coast and settling in San Francisco, because the notoriously chemically fueled quartet's only album from 1989, though rapturously received by critics, never managed to connect with consumers. In retrospect, and in light of the revealing lessons of a few years later, the more likely explanation is that deeper, darker inclinations (and quite deadlier fuels -- i.e. heroin) simply didn't result in the sort of music that the era's party-and-eyeliner-obsessed masses wanted to hear. Barnstorming opener is only as lively as its explicit sexual frustration allows (no easy lays for this band, it would seem), and which arrives hot on its heels with a chugging riff, mid-paced groove, and appropriately whiney vocal delivery, proves even dimmer in outlook and defeatist in story line. With the exception of the subsequent airhead of the aforementioned pairing presages the ensuing material's far more dour and complex preoccupations, including the self-explanatory the memorable start-stop rhythm of the desperate-for-a-fix rush of and the simply fantastic riff of (too heavy for Hollywood by any measure). All told, they help make this a very unique album for its time and place, and contribute to its having aged surprisingly well, to boot. [The 2007 reissue includes bonus tracks.] ~ Eduardo Rivadavia