Just jammed this again (in full, no worries Johnny, I didn't tap out halfway thru!), twice actually (once last night and again this morning) and while I'd surely need to revisit some of Unwound's other albums to have utmost certainty, I'm fairly confident that yes yes, just as I've aaaalready said before, this is indeed Unwound's finest hour (among a discography full of very, very fine hours, to be sure). Side A + 'Honourosis' alone are enough to catapult this into legendary status. Side B is slightly-less-good, that's a fact, but I've been saying the same thing about Bowie's LOW for over a decade now and that's one of my all-time favorites so 🤷♂️ While the albums are sonically quite different, this elicits similar feelings in me as SPIDERLAND does - nervous energy (pun v much intended), anxiety that bubbles toward aggression, undirected anger. The one major difference is that there's an occasional undertone of respite/hope here during the albums 'softer' moments (e.g. 'Kantina' before the coda, first half of 'Honourosis') that seem to 'show you the light' only momentarily before tossing the manhole cover back over top. (Cf. SPIDERLAND is pretty much just dour and miserable and spoopy the entire way thu.)
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