Harmacy

Tracks:

On Fire
Prince-S
Ocean
Nothing Like You
Crystal Gypsy
Beauty Of The Ride
Mind Reader
Sforzando!
Willing To Wait
Hillbilly II
Zone Doubt
Too Pure
Worst Thing
Love To Fight
Perfect Way
Can't Give Up
Open Ended
Weed Against Speed
I Smell A Rat

Amazon.com

Lo-fi no longer, Lou Barlow and friends come on like early R.E.M. with their most melodic, produced and likable album. --Jeff Bateman

Customer Reviews:

One of the best albums ever........2006-11-30

Basically, lou has all the slow songs and jason has the more fast punk
and unique songs. Best song by lou is, " on fire," best song by jason is
every song. Jason's songs here, are some of the best collection of songwriting skills placed on a album. Jason wrote some of my favorite sebadoh songs, "Prince-S." " Hillbilly II,"(rockin'instrumental) "Crystal gypsy," "Mind reader." Not too say lou's are all a let down, but, "perfect way," is just kinda boring. It took me a while to get used to the more slower songs. However, Jason's contribution here is just outstanding.

The genius of Lou.......2006-03-18

The main thing that has been in the way of Barlows excellent songwriting were other bandmembers. Now also only half of the songs are from his hand while the others were penned by Jason Loewenstein. Loewenstein certainly not is a bad writer, he just is not in the same league as the fragile songs of Barlow.

There are some great faster songs like 'Ocean' and 'Beauty of the Ride' but it's the slower songs like 'Too Pure' and 'On Fire' and most of all 'Willing To Wait' that are among Barlow's best.

It doesn't have the overall quality of Bakesale (Loewensteins best Sebadoh songs are on there) but Barlow's songs make it worthwhile.

For every fan of great songwriting.

Different sound, same songwriting.......2004-06-21

After the semi-success of Folk Implosion in 1995 with the song Natural One. Fans were eagerly waiting to see what Lou Barlow would do next. The result is this.

Harmacy is a total indie sound. No more low-fi, no more Eric. We're in the NORMAL stage now. With songs like On Fire, Willing to Wait, Beauty of the Ride and Open Ended making this seem more like an almost different band but the songwriting is still there as is the hard rock/punky songs to fill in for these more pop sounding songs. The harder songs are actually the better ones, but something comes to mind. Without Eric writing these, they sound disturbingly close to Mudhoney or Nirvana especially Crystal Gypsy and Love to Fight which have the grungy guitar sounds and the Mark Arm-like signing. Then there's Can't give up, Worst thing and Nothing like you which sound like Nirvana-esque tunes. Can't give up actually reminds me of Pearl Jam a bit in some cases. A few instrumentals on here also, Weed against Speed (I'd take speed), Szforando! (don't quite get it) and Hillbilly II (hilarious Mudhoney-type song) which make for some jammin songs with no signing. The whole album is worth listining too if you're a new fan to Sebadoh (This was the first I got from Lou) the sound is there and so is the soungwriting but it does lose a star for the lack of ANGER. The past albums had more emotion and anger to fill the void of these depressing love songs goen wrong. And without Eric there, I think half the anger is gone (if you don't believe me, then listen too "As the world dies from Sebadoh III). But still Sebadoh snowballs as you progress into their catalouge of music.

What's next after this? Try the Freed Weed or Bakesale if you're a new fan.

I highly recommend this awesome piece of indie rock.

harmacy equates harmony.......2001-11-26