Consumer Guide Album

Pere Ubu: The Tenement Year [Antone's, 1988]
Yes, this is Ubu--four of the seven players were on Dub Housing. But before Scott Krauss was brought in--can't expect much backbeat with Chris Cutler hogging the drums--it was also the most recent edition of David Thomas's Pedestrians/Wooden Birds making a rock move. So what's astonishing isn't just the high spirits and good faith, both rare enough on reunions, but the singleness of purpose. It's not as if Thomas's crotchety nature-boy mysticism has been blown away--one of these songs is an attack on zoos. But the momentum of the backbeat and the electric clamor of the whole move straighten him out and toughen him up, while at the same time his loving, surrealistic sarcasm dominates the music, with Allen Ravenstine reaching untold heights of kooky reintegration. This record proves not only that good-hearted eccentrics can live in the world, but that they can change it for the better. Every song stays with you, but the one for the ages is "We Have the Technology," which leaves you thinking that we just may and we just may not. Thank you, Scott Krauss. A