Consumer Guide Album

Archers of Loaf: Vee Vee [Alias, 1995]
Eric Bachmann's pissed-off, speechlike yowl-to-croak isn't as callow or pop as Stephen Malkmus's demented, speechlike croon-to-whine, but their bands share an aural gestalt: tuneful two-guitar breaks that set off unkempt explosions before recombining in brief climaxes soon interrupted by more disarray. The Archers trace the agitated melodies and off guitar to the Replacements, as if the clamor Bob Stinson unloosed by accident and spirit possession was instead planned out by former sax major Bachmann and axe-wielding bad boy Eric Johnson. With Paul Westerberg an adept of the realistic popsong and the Archers' titles so gnomic they forget them themselves, I resisted this notion until the show where I caught myself shouting out a whole utterly comprehensible stanza: "They caught and drowned the front man/Of the world's worst rock and roll band/He was out of luck/Because nobody gave a fuck/The jury gathered all around the aqueduct/Drinking and laughing and lighting up/Reminiscing just how bad he sucked/Singin' throw him in the river/Throw him in the river/Throw him in the river/Throw the bastard in the river." A