TPOH: One-Sided Story
One-Sided Story starts out with a solo acoustic guitar and Moe's aggressive little voice bursting like a horse out of the ... horse-holding thing at the horse-race, um, and keeps going from there. With a caveperson's garage band's guitar/bass/ drum crash, the rest of the band join in, and one of TPOH's dumbest teenage backseat/basement odes to crappy sex and stupid jokes kicks in:
sometimes you're a little like
shake-and-bake chicken
a little hard on the outside but so soft within
I bite through your coating and you ooze all over me
I feel just like a pig with your juice running down my chin
-FoodRing the dinner bell. It is The Pursuit of Happiness's ability to perform this song with complete seriousness, their ability to sing this Kiss-worthy song with full rock energy, with full commitment to the song, that makes them a great band even on a less than par album like this.
And it doesn't have to be embarrassing! Because Berg pleads for his right to say these things two songs later in a way that so does not rock that you know its important to him to assure you that he isn't stupid. New Language sounds like a bad new wave song, but has a charm informed in large part by the lyrics and the ever-present, ever-cool Female Background Singers (on this album, guitarist Kris Abbott and singer Leslie Stanwick). Its not a great song, but its endearing.
I know its been said that talk is cheap
But we know the power it really has
Must it be rigid and so benign?
Can't it be free and efficacious?
... if you take away my words
How can I tell you the truth?
-New LanguageAhhh. Moe. Following Love Junk, One-Sided Story didn't blow many minds. Stuffed into a pack of Canadian summer songs in 1990 (remember The Northern Pikes?), Two Girls In One was a powerful radio start, but there aren't enough truly great songs on this record to make it one of their best. And timing was never the band's strong point: The Downward Road, the truly great follow-up, had the Grunge Whirlwind to compete with, and it lost.
The band take second shots at targets already covered on Love Junk: shitty relationships with prominent bass (Something Physical - Tree of Knowledge), shameful lust sung about happily (Runs in the Family -- Man's Best Friend), pathetic submission (Shave Your Legs -- Down On Him). Little Platoons begins an aural tradition which will be echoed throughout the band's career (Crashing Down, Hate Engine, Falling In) of unbridled, speedy, rhythm-guitar lick songs. The Downward Road features this kind of song almost exclusively.
This is an interim album -- Todd Rundgren' s production sounds just the same, and while there are new sounds (a tenor sax solo in Survival, the aforementioned acoustic guitar), this is really a Love Junk Part Two. A valuable album, an enjoyable one, but not essential. Just wait, though. The band is far from done.
TPOH: One Sided Story. Chrysalis, 1990.
Review by jep clayton, BadMonkeyX. 1st issue, January 2001.
