Review Summary: A solid satisfying forgettable lost soul of a record with a big blue sorry heart.
I will not impress upon the reader the importance of this album. It is not important.
I will not impress upon the reader the social context of the hyperbole of 1995. Hyperbole is not important. It is very important. That is why we must not talk about it.
I will not impress upon the reader that the important social and cultural issues of the day can be exposed by a thorough examination of the lyrical discourses within these verses.
I will not impress the reader with a high score. There is none to be had. There are other high scores. Those who collect medals may pass.
I will impress the reader only these bare artifacts. Facts born of tempered frustration..
I will impress the reader only the facts and then a brief statement by our benefactor.
FACT 1: This is the workingman’s album. This workingman’s album was made by the working men of whom’s collar colors cannot be held into account or question. You pay your taxes on time with a grudge in your pocket.
FACT 2: This is a tight collar. A lean collar. Eleven even sized sandwich sized collars. There is ample starch and sufficient quantities of bleach to not burden the fabric with purity. Your collar will not stiffen upon wearing this shirt. You will comfortable but not comfortable enough to remember the fire drill with safe definition. You will be mobile and you will be your surveillance.
FACT 3: You will leave the keys in the ignition. You will park your car straight into the garage. You may close the door but you will not install an electric motor into the mechanism of the workingman’s garage door. Senility should be your chosen destination.
FACT 4: You will be respectful to your neighbors. You may look different but you still stick in. You get stuck in. You are one of the boys. A layman. An everyman. A gentleman. A tame urban cat, angry but hope for supper.
FACT 5: You work 8-5 and have a packed lunch. You eat well. There is fruit. Show up at work on time. Leave on time. Dinner awaits. You are solidly built and well engineered. You mix things up a lot but it all just sounds the same in the end.
FACT 6: Look back but not forwards. Parking is in the rear.
"I come to you not as a friend but as a journeyman. I come to you as a discipline of the faith and as pretender to gods. I am the ship. I am the vessel. I am the momentum. I am the swing in the bat. I am the air that makes you miss and the wood that makes you hit. I am like you. I sing like you. I play like you.
How can you change what has already befallen? Why change what is rotten? When the world around you is a chorus of pomp do not try to be the circumstance. Be the underbelly. Be grace.
Would it be wrong of me to propose buying my shirt for 49c from Amazon? Would it be wrong of me to compare thee to a Pantera’s day? To a poor rich boy’s Machine Head? Yes, my ardent followers it would. For this is more for it is less. We are the understated members of a league happy under the sea. Aye my friends. My chosen seabeasts. Our collars are wet, and yes we are humble but we are not weak. We are not weak enough to accept the ingratitude of pity or the comparison of other lesser marine life. We are happy in this our simple triumph. Our only ties are to our hearts and to our blue collar solitude now laden above all your skies.
Do as your heart compels you. I will tell your eager ears with earnest aplomb that this here is a solid pledge. I will tell you I have sweated these verses. I have delved into the recesses to find this work. There is no fraud in this work here. Do you enjoy purity of delivery? Can you put down your pretence and solder the hearts of men into plumbers and tinkers?
I know not what I say, and yet I deliver these goods as my own. They are fresh and they are stale. Cabbage taste depends on how you boil the cabbage down. I like cabbage gentleman. I like cabbage a lot. But do not hold that same cabbage against me. Grind. Relax. Bite teeth, whisper and grind. We are all cabbage and so we may as well not starve.”
