Four years ago, I bore witness to the musical mismatch of the century: Eleventh Dream Day opening for Thrill Jockey label mates Tortoise. All the look-alike post-rock Tortoise followers, sporting the fluorescent rave garb and matching backpacks seemed genuinely flummoxed by the band. As these grizzled, perennially underrated veterans roared through an uptempo rocker, frontman Rick Rizzo laid into his guitar strings for an eyebrow-singeing solo. My girlfriend at the time, senses previously dulled by hours of French techno, exclaimed, "Wow, this is rock 'n' roll!"
Yes, for all those kids brainwashed by the hi-tech hijinx of late-'90s Pro Tools-manufactured and sonar blip-rock, Eleventh Dream Day must have sounded pretty anachronistic. After all, they're veritable alt-rock dinosaurs: along with Sonic Youth, and Yo La Tengo, Eleventh Dream Day are one of the precious few surviving bands from that mid-to-late '80s pre-grunge milieu of college-rock ruled by long-expired bands like the Godfathers, the Blasters, the Replacements and the Feelies. Hey, that's way back when Kurt Cobain was still a roadie. Yep, this was before youth culture embraced Tony Bennett, and before "alternative" became a media-whore buzzword to mean "anything except Boyz II Men."
To his credit, math-whiz John McEntire does an agreeable production job on Stalled Parade. And granted, it would be kinda difficult to turn Eleventh Dream Day into Gastr del Sol or Tortoise. Luckily McEntire hasn't really disciplined Rizzo's disobedient guitar all that much.
As on 1997's McEntire-produced Eighth, Eleventh Dream Day seems more concerned with texture and atmosphere than song form and melody. Which is fine, but as a result, they never quite rock with the kind of manic intensity they did on earlier efforts like 1990's Beet and 1991's Lived to Tell. Those early Atlantic recordings, as under-produced and shoddy as they often were, held some of the finest and most overlooked guitar moments of the decade. And featured, arguably, the best male/female vocal interplay in rock since X.
The title track and opener, probably the album's high point, fades in with a dramatic flood tide of distortion engulfing the rhythm section. Its slow dirge-friendly pace sets off, with Bean and Rizzo's distanced, ghostly vocal tracks making for some eerie but beautiful synchronized singing: "Save yourself," they urge, "'Cause you might save me."
And possibly taking a cue from their more successful cousins, Yo La Tengo, Rizzo and company are beginning to write songs showcasing the blond chick singer with the angelic voice-- the one who also happens to be the drummer. In this case, it's Janet Beveridge Bean, sounding like a proper No Depression alterna-country gal on "Valrico74." She's paid her dues singing in Freakwater for the past few years, so she's certainly earned her place in front of the mic.
"Ice Storm" and "Interstate," more than anything else on Stalled Parade, are fairly standard Dream Day numbers. Rizzo's Neil Young-meets-Tom Verlaine guitar heroism is still in evidence, especially on "In the Style Of..." giving a sampling of the swarm of angry hornets he's capable of conjuring from his axe when inspired. McEntire himself adds some droning keyboard that fits in well enough, mainly because it's barely conspicuous much of the time. Although on Bean's near-perfect vocal number, the sparse, mid-tempo "Bite the Hand," McEntire's keyboard sounds like a chainsaw slicing through sheet metal, and explodes into a needless frenzy towards the end.
The Thrill Jockey-era Eleventh Dream Day has, unfortunately, lost some of its songwriting focus at the expense of tinkering with their overall sound-- mainly under the pretense of some sort of progress, I'm guessing. Yet, they still can't approach the awesome combination of squalling guitar rock tempered with pristine Pretenders-worthy melodies, and simply great songwriting on 1993's El Moodio.
Eleventh Dream Day seem caught between Rizzo's irrepressible instincts for Live Rust-style garage-rock and a gradual shift to a more advanced, studio-processed sound. Creeping towards a slightly more experimental sonic philosophy has, I suppose, become necessary for a profitable existence amongst all the Tortoises and Trans Ams. This somewhat "new" direction is refreshing in some respects, and it may even help attract a larger, more diverse audience. Still, at times, ol' nostalgic fussbudget Grandpa Sandlin just wants 'em to rock out like them good ol' days.
