Published on Nov 24, 1999
I don’t like having my opinion changed. Okay, I admit I’m
stubborn in this regard: once I make my mind up about something, I
hate having to change it. Ask my wife.
Take, for example, my feelings toward the band Marcy Playground.
My whole view of this band was shaped by the song “Sex And Candy.”
Simply put: I
hate
that fuckin’ song. Needless to say, I never felt any immediate
need to learn any more about this band.
Then, in the mail comes
Shapeshifter, the latest release from John Wozniak and crew.
Seeing that I wasn’t too keen on listening to it, I left the disc
sit in the “to be reviewed” pile for a couple of weeks. But my
friends at Capitol can only be so patient with me, and I thought
their patience was about to run out, so into the player the disc
went.
And you know something? I’m amazed at how good this disc is.
From note one to the hidden track at the end, Marcy Playground make
me want to forget that “Sex And Candy” ever existed — and this
disc might put to rest any fears of Marcy Playground falling prey
to the “sophomore slump.”
The band – guitarist/vocalist Wozniak, bassist Dylan Keefe and
drummer Dan Rieser – almost try to start things off with a blank
slate on
Shapeshifter, not allowing their past to shape the outcome
of ths album. And that new outlook on the music can be heard on
tracks like “Bye Bye,” “Never” and the charmingly quirky “Secret
Squirrel”. (I vaguely remember the cartoon character of this name –
wasn’t he on the same show as “The Great Grape Ape”?) This music
isn’t nearly as melancholy as I would have expected — no, this is
rather lively.
Wozniak does seem to sing with a monotone delivery at times, but
on tracks like “Wave Motion Gun” and “Pigeon Farm,” he breaks loose
from that stereotype and allows his vocals to wander wherever they
choose. (The latter song apparently isn’t a new track; it’s one the
band has been playing live for some time now.)
The one key word that sums up
Shapeshifter is this: fun. You can clearly hear on songs
like “It’s Saturday,” “All The Lights Went Out” and “Never” that
the band was having fun recording this album. In turn, that level
of enjoyment is passed on to the listener; you might be surprised
how hard it is to take this disc out of the changer – even down to
the neo-psychedelic groove of “Our Generation.”
Now, it’s no secret I don’t like the way that “hidden” tracks
are buried in ten-plus minutes or fifty-some five-second long
tracks of silence. But the 1890’s take on “Pigeon Farm” — which
comes about three minutes after “Our Generation” fades out — is
kind of interesting, and I would have liked to have heard this
one-minute experiment turned into a full track.
I said in the beginning of this review, I hate having my opinion
changed. But with
Shapeshifter, I’m not only forced to re-think my views about
Marcy Playground, I’m forced to admit I absolutely love this album.
I hate it when other people are right.