Review Summary: Rusty is an underground masterpiece that manages to combine depression with perfection. For such a raw album, it has no blemishes. One listen can change your outlook on music.
Depression is an odd thing, especially when it's in music. Because if it's done just right, it can be sad and exhilarating all at once. And though an album can be such a bum out, you're thankful for finding it.
Rusty is that type of album. If you are one of the too many who haven't heard of Rodan, Think of every accolade given to
Slint and the same can be applied to
Rodan. The 2 are similar in many cases. They are both seen as huge parts of the Early nineties Math Rock scene in Louisville, both feature dissonant riffs and odd time signatures. Both would rather tell a story than sing a traditional song, and both have great musicianship. The album starts out with the beautifully haunting
Bible Silver Corner. An Instrumental that would lead you to believe you are introduced to hopeful, beautiful music. Friendly eclectic guitar work makes you think more of happiness than depression. But the mood is avalanched by the other 5 songs that are as dark and hopeless as you can get.
Great albums are genuinely established on the first listen, but very seldom has an album completely grabbed my attention and praise. From the first listen on, I had forgotten about all of my other music. And the beginning of fall is met with an equally cold and dark album. Never has so much depression felt so elating. Disregard genres, voices, and instrument. This is a gloomy, cloudy, messy album and I don't need to hear a word because the music is already harsh enough to appeal to any human who has ever felt empty.
Male/Female singing is by no means a new way to sing, it has been used for ages, but never like this. The male and Female harmonies are bleak and confrontational. These aren't duets, this is organized chaos. And unlike their Louisville brethren
Slint, most of all of Rodan's songs have some type of rhyme scheme. The lyrics are sung, spoken and shouted. Whatever it takes to get the point across. This album paints a picture of a grey, cloudy, rainy day. Picture a harsh comedown from a dangerous drug, take your broken, betrayed, and angry self, and write your deepest darkest feelings. on
Gauge, a song about trying to hide from fears, the paranoid lyrics build up until Jeff repeats "
Nothing Is Wrong" as unenthusiastically as possible.
Jungle Jim is a slow song that features bassist Tara Jane O'Neil trying her hand at lead singer with Jeff backing her. It may be the most depressing song on the album. The guitar work is slow and hopeless, and Tara angrily shares her lyrics, shouting "
Now there's nothing left!". Eventually the music dies out, and all you can hear is dissonant screaming. This continues to get louder until a loud drum intro starts
The Everyday World OF Bodies, an epic in every sense of the world. topping eleven minutes with non-stop energy. The guitar work is as gloomy as any I've heard before. The lyrics are at their best on this song. With many angry refrains and shouts of "
You Were Sick, So Sick, So Sick" and "
I will be there.... I swear!"
Shiner is the most traditional song on the album. A quick angry song under 3 minutes, with more forlorn lyrics: "
It burns its head and throat Spreading a rash of arsenic, magnolias and crushed coal. A fire in its heart Will not let it die.".
The album ends with
Tooth Fairy Retribution Manifesto. Which starts out with what sounds like child's play toys be softly pushed with creaking and an eerie piano being randomly tapped. The song is mostly sung by Tara, who sets the tone of the song by saying "
You don't move... You get pushed." The guitar is grungy and raw. And seems to go 6/6 in songs that are just flawless. This album is defined by it's gloomy ness, which is heard in the voices of the Tandem of Jeff and Tara, the dissonant and harsh riffs, and the relentless drum work. Rodan may have not gotten nearly the fame that they deserved. and maybe
Rusty deserved the credit that was given to
Spiderland. But
Rusty is better than anything
Slint could've ever hoped to put out. While I love songs about a tweezer fetish, and a roller coaster ride with a cheap fortune teller, nothing can compare to the unsettling mood this album has. So call it call it whatever you want: Post-Rock, Math Rock, Prog. The only word that pops into my head about this album is Classic in every sense of the word. The album was literarily genre defining, and the second I finished listening to this album, I knew it was already one of the biggest masterpieces I have heard. Never has a six song album barely reaching 42 Minutes gotten so much across. Many people speak of music that has changed their lives, I'm not going to say that
Rusty has changed my life, but it's at least severely affected how I look at emotion in music.
Pros
This album just grabs your attention from start to finish.
Beautiful Vocals
Perfect Musicianship
Cons
Some may deem it too short
Some may not like the raw, lo-fi sound of this album
The fact that this is th only album Rodan put out
Recommended Tracks
Jungle Jim
The Everyday World Of Bodies
Tooth Fairy Retribution Manifesto
