Neutral Milk Hotel - On Avery Island

"On Avery Island" was one of two full lengths that Neutral Milk Hotel released before their untimely break up. Along with their follow up "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" they managed to carve themselves as one of the best lo-fi bands of all time, rubbing elbows with Guided By Voices, Sebadoh and the like. What made me pick this release over their second album is it's general way of staying true to lo-fi concepts, whilst the later record was much more technically produced and therefore lost most of the warm, fuzzy qualities that "On Avery Island" has in bucket loads.

It's quite easy to be put off by the out of key singing on first listen, but on closer inspection it seems as if the vocals are slipping and at times slightly awkward for a reason, that being to add emphasis to certain points in the lyrics, thus helping them to become more prominent under the wall of noise. So basically we have a record that seems slapped together quickly but in fact took a painful amount of subtlety and care to make it the interesting early work that it is.

Song Against Sex
Where You'll Find Me

Expired