Anchors Of Bleed
Year: 1996
Format: LP/CD/Cassette
Label / Release No.:
LP/CD - Communion (comm40) & Cassette - Shrimper (shr) |
Tracks:
One Of Everything
Green Rush
Blue Prints
Thrill
Amber Major
Huntington
Newport
Pretend To Go
Convenience Store
Retreat
Ellie Ward
Circus Freaks
With Razorblades
Gold |
Credits:
Allen Callaci - Vocals
Dennis Callaci - Guitar, Organ & Vocals
Chris Jones - DrumsRecorded by Bob Durkee
Front Cover art by Amy Maloof
Cover
Layout by Allen and Dennis Callaci
Recorded May 1995 at FBE Studios |
Reviews:
My beef with a lot of the
hiss-factory home-recording types currently clogging the indie
distribution arteries is that there's nothing underneath their fuzz and
buzz: no great songs, no inspired playing, just the fair-to-middling noise
of camp followers wanting to sound like their last favorite album, and
folks who've figured out it's cheaper than ever to live out their
rock-and-roll fantasies. So hats off to Refrigerator for parting the
curtain of murk and bringing their tunes into focus on their new album.
Refrigerator's songs are up to being laid bare, because they're built of
strong stuff. Singer Allen Callaci delivers affect-laden internal
dialogues that read like a stream-of-consciousness posting from a trip to
the strip mall, and sound as sad as the end of the world. His brother,
Dennis, builds one- or two-chord
soundworlds that buzz with unresolved tension, then settles us down with a
few of the best cheap-organ notes I've heard since Una Baines quit working
with the Blue Orchids. Drummer Chris Jones moves things along without ever
getting in the way. Together, they stave off the creative bankruptcy that
threatens foreclosure on indie rock.
Bill Meyer (mailbox@puncturemagazine.com)
- From Puncture #36 - Summer 1996
The songs do not all sound the
same - they never have - but the Callaci Bros. have settled on a style and
they're going to stick to it for what may be most of the rest of my life;
namely inquisitive, self-abasing, grainy vocals, "dirty", cardboardy
drums, desolation, and pathos. The mantras are easy to remember, things
like "got no real address, she's got no real address", and the songs
sandpaper-grade into each other like on their first few Shrimper tapes.
"Adults have grown in where we used to live", but that's no reason not to
be childishly, genuinely, extremely sad over it (stringy reverberant
echoes in that song, "Pretend To Go", made me realize where the D.Callaci
guitaring comes from, besides "no lessons", it's Murmur). The lyric sheet
is for once a very good idea, and if not for that I might not have noticed
"we'll make it home by selling everything we need", which is both a cool
nod to what this style says about class, money and popularity - if you
can't afford a new shirt the other kids won't look up to you - and a good
line.
Steve Burt (hairpie@earthlink.net)
- from Popwatch #8
Refrigerator's 1994 release
(How You Continue Dreaming) drifted through the intensely indirect songs
that are the band's trademark with an eerie twang that tended to stir the
emotions more than soothe them -- Anchors of Bleed, on the other hand, has
the band aiming a few degrees closer to prettiness. It's certainly one of
the group's cleaner releases -- there are several lovely pop tunes like
"Amber Major, " which hint at the truly direct songwriting which would
define the band's self-titled album -- but its most interesting
progression is the fact that its most drawling and languid tracks have a
rustic beauty to them that wasn't entirely present in the emotional torpor
of its predecessor. This may mean that its sound isn't as idiosyncratic as
that of How You Continue Dreaming, nor as direct and accessible as
Refrigerator, but it's an equally appealing album -- its composition
reveals a focus and an eye for melody that's not as pronounced on other
Refrigerator releases.
Nitsuh Abebe (allmusic.com)
- from All-Music Guide |
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