Chocolate Cake

Grant Lee Buffalo, Fuzzy (1993)

I’ve never been much for the bus. Something about it seems like one of the highest forms of commitment one could take in terms of transportation. Typically crowded, cramped, confined, your only hope for luxury is a bathroom stall located at the back. Yet, for myself, I feel so imbued with a passion for travel by rail. Typically crowded, cramped, confined, your only hope for luxury on a train is an empty seat next to you. How can two seemingly similar vessels of transit provide such a distinctly different experience? Well, I am usually one bar below the required confidence to be so decisive but I cannot ignore my predilection for ❀~charm~ and, like that of the passenger train, Fuzzy is absolutely saturated with it. Built with the salient and recondite elements that forms a masterpiece, I can’t help but feel the album is adorned with unspoken arrogant and pretentious accoutrement. Aside from one or two tracks, I can’t help but be distracted by a desire for Grant Lee Buffalo to take themselves just a little less serious (the music videos that accompany the tracklist do not help this case).

 

While I would say the band provides a cornucopia of themes and styles within folk rock, alt rock, and americana the fruit bearing within is of a monochromatic ehhh greyscale variety; the themes are mostly that of relationships and lyrical jejune introspection, the style is a patchwork of past rock pioneers hewing to the jingoism of the protogrunge scene, yet the songwriting and execution is just…divine. Although the lyrics seemed to be pulled from the diary of a Cameron Crowe character, album artwork being that perfectly besmirched sallow portrait that adorns many masterpieces (looking at you Blonde on Blonde), the execution of Grant Lee Phillip’s songwriting creates a milieu woven with an enchanting puzzle that is as fun to piece together as it is to find all the pieces themselves.

 

To open the album The Shining Hour rides a driving tempo carried by Joey Peters’ brushed drum and delightfully entertaining basswork by Paul Kimble, concluded sweetly by an apocalyptic piano drop. Jupiter And Teardrop punches in with a page right out of Teenage Daydream followed closely by a lugubrious acoustic ballad. The contrasting overdriven guitar bathes the song in dynamism and is a delightful welcome to the track. Oh, you need a radio single? Look no further than the title track Fuzzy. We see this track riding the brakes with a more restrained tempo and a delicate vocal delivery that serves one of the most satisfying choruses of the decade.

 

Wish You Well leaves me mucking through the morass looking for the sanctuary within the chorus. I could only describe the song as being left too long in the oven, seeming to compile the ingredient list from one recipe processed with the baking instructions of another. The Hook atones for the harshness of the previous track by bringing a gentle cloud of warmth and emotional vibrance that would make even a sunset blush, casting the hook needed to drag me out of the aforementioned mud & guck. I can’t help but to frolic in the space between the layered acoustic guitar and brushed percussion. Soft Wolf Tread provides an experience similar to Wish You Well but feeling derived more from a fairy tail than a bad breakup.

 

Stars ‘n’ Stripes opens side B with a ballad about digital videography (idk I had trouble following the lyrics on this one) building to a dalliance between a slide guitar and a marimba. Dixie Drug Store breaks through the carceral persistence of alternative and welcomes in a slight southern flavor of urban americana. The vocal delivery is complemented with a symphony of instruments slowly festooning the track and topped with an intoxicating piano melody. America Snoring struggles as a rather generic rock anthem adorned with a vocal elegy for American society. Grace provides a slightly subdued sound from the previous track that leads us into You Just Have To Be Crazy which, while I appreciate the gentle conclusion, I am left just wanting one more sledgehammer to the piano or one more guitar scream to leave a more lasting mark.

 

While Fuzzy fits all the makings of a timeless album I feel there are some kinks that were purposefully left untouched to trade in mass-market palpability for an endearing and evocative sound that truly leaves a mark on those fortunate enough to stumble upon this half-buried treasure.

 

 

-          Ape

Simply a true charlatan of the pen; consume my bombast.