Refrigerator
Year: 1997
Format: LP/CD
Label / Release No.: Shrimper (shr101) |
Tracks:
Young Confusion
California
In Another Room
As If You Were No Ones
Instead of Flowers
Somehow
Western Lights
Undue Tragedy
Come Spring
Jokes and Seeds
Motel Arrest
Sea Level
Unrealized
Splitting Atoms
Jive Jive
The Sky Swam Into View |
Credits:
Allen Callaci - Vocals
Dennis Callaci - Guitar, Pump Organ & Vocals
Chris Jones - Drums, Acoustic Guitar & Accordian
Aaron Alcala - Acoustic Guitar (Tracks 7, 13), Rhythm Guitar
(Track 10)
Buckethead - Banjo (Track 13), Strings & Harmonics (Track 16)
John Davis - Background Vocals (Track 7)
Bob Durkee - Acoustic Guitar (Track 8)
Recorded by Bob Durkee
Mastered by John Golden
Cover art by Amy Maloof
Photos by Amy Maloof (Pages 4,5,8,9)
Photos by Marc Campos (Pages 3,6,7,10,11)
Photo by Chris Jones (Page 2)
Layout by Bill Magdziarz
Recorded January 26, 1996 - April 9, 1997 at FBE Studios |
Reviews:
Refrigerator is certainly one
of the most expressive bands milling around the underground, and for that
reason has been warmly embraced by some and thoroughly misunderstood by
many. Like that stubborn strand of hair atop Little Rascal Alfalfa's head
that refuses to lay flat, singer Allen Callaci is Refrigerator's
personality, a defining feature that makes his band what it is. Set
against brother Dennis's affectionately strummed guitars and drummer Chris
Jones's comforting taps on the skins, Allen's whines, moans and squeals
make him sound both frail and confident in his confessions, which might go
something like, "And I'm your silent fool/Your cheap vacation/Your
sympathetic solution/But I keep sticking around" ("As If You Were No
Ones"). Whereas on previous recordings Refrigerator took the low road when
it came to production quality and song arrangement, the trio's fourth
full-length release sounds bright and welcoming, and plays out warmly and
fully. Songs such as "Young Confusion," "In Another Room" and "Jokes And
Seeds" have more developed arrangements and more sophisticated melodies,
making them more inviting. Contributions from likely candidates such as
John Davis ("Western Lights") and unlikely candidates such as Buckethead
("Unrealized," "The Sky Swam Into View") add to the excitement of a band
reaching its prime, but it's Refrigerator and its distinct idiosyncrasies
that ultimately steal the show.
Lydia Anderson (lydiaa@cmj.com)
- from CMJ Music Monthly
...the beauty of
Refrigerator's fourth album is that it looks at sadness dead-on without
all the self-flagellation...
- from Magnet - 1-2/98 p.78
At some point during its
evolution, Refrigerator's latest set may have contained recognizable pop
songs. But only the fittest survived, the leanest, the meanest, and all
the superfluous fluff -- ornate ornamentation, pretty segues -- just
disappeared, irrelevant to the musical world Refrigerator wanted to
create.
What's left are 14 taut, spare melodies, fast and slow, loud and soft,
forever ready to frustrate your expectations. On "In Another Room," for
example, you always expect the pretty, hesitant strumming to climax with a
crashing crescendo, but it doesn't, and then the song is over, and you're
left thinking: Wow. These songs are built around subtle variations on a
theme, and to this end, Refrigerator's musical vocabulary consists more of
carefully chosen dissonance than thundering power chords or macho
distortion.
Then there's "Somehow" -- elaborately distorted guitar curlicues
embroidered onto a background of melodic fuzz, forever hinting at some
sort of baroque, cataclysmic release, some sort of doom and destruction,
but always holding back, even until the end when the song dissolves into a
final anticlimactic wave of noise.
Think you see a pattern? Well, maybe, but trick always seems to work. Each
song manages to maintain an unmistakable nervous tension -- sometimes
through Allen Callaci's shy vocals, sometimes through the skittish drums,
sometimes through the understated guitars -- that keeps you guessing that
maybe, just maybe, this song will be one where Refrigerator loses its
cool.
Chris Schwartz (schwartz@outersound.com)
- from Scratch cyberzine - September 97
Refrigerator follows up on a
trend that earlier releases like Anchors of Bleed hinted at -- it takes
the sprawling and entirely low-key introspection of Refrigerator's past
work into territory that could acceptably be described as pop. This
newfound straightforwardness makes the record their most accessible
release (tracks like "California" even have the sloppy melodicism of early
Pavement) -- the core of the songwriting seems to lie in the same
idiosyncratic space as the languid drawl of How You Continue Dreaming, but
all of its elements are presented clearly enough to keep things simpler,
cleaner, and more widely appealing. Surprisingly, none of this sacrifices
the band's most unique tendencies -- Refrigerator is brisker, more direct,
and less bogged-down in navel-gazing, but its still vintage Refrigerator.
Nitsuh Abebe (allmusic.com)
- from All-Music Guide
No other California band
captures the poignant raw emotion and pure spirit of indie pop better than
this trio of Allen Callaci (vocals), Dennis Callaci (gtr, pump organ,
vocals) and Chris Jones (drums, acoustic gtr, accordion).
There are so many great pop songs on this record that I am resisting the
temptation to quote all sixteen of them, verse by verse, lyric by lyric to
demonstrate the illumination this record burns with.
REFRIGERATOR have always had the unique ability of supplanting upbeat
homemade melodies with deeply emotional and sometimes deeply disturbing
lyrics. Just the lyrics - could stand on their own as fragmented poems of
personal tragedy and repair. With their music they become indelible. I
never thought they had another how you Continue Dreaming or Anchors Of
Bleed in them. Sometimes, it feels so damn good - to be wrong. Recorded at
FBE studios in San Dimas by Bob Durkee (who plays guitar and co-wrote
"Undue Tragedy.")
Green Mountain Music
Review (gmmr@gmmr.net)
Listening to Refrigerator is a
lot like watching the Spanish channel. You have no idea why people are so
upset, yelling and crying and carrying on, yet you can't shut it off
either. The Callaci brothers (namely Dennis the guitarist who owns
Shrimper and Allen the singer) have once again created an album full of
songs whose lyrics are mostly audible, but whose dark, scary meanings are
only hinted at. They've got a real knack for arranging regular old English
words and phrases into an order which renders them humorous, soulful and
incomprehensible.
Musically they're back in the slacker's rocking chair, lazily hitting the
distortion pedal or the high notes in a way that reminds you they can do
whatever they want because they own the record label.
Patrick Rapa (pat@citypaper.net)
- from Philadelphia City Paper Interactive |
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