cherryla's Full Review: American Thighs by Veruca Salt
After having panned Resolver in another review, I think I owe Veruca Salt a nice review, because I really don't hate them. In fact, they are my favorite band, largely because of this album, which is far and away their best.
I honestly can't say which song is "THE BEST" because, in my opinion, all of the songs are equally incredible. They are all extraordinarily well-written and the vocals and guitars are absolutely heavenly. This album is very, very deep. Listening to it is like waking up after a long night of crazy dreams and feeling very melancholic.
A lot of other reviewers have said that this album is about the painful process of losing one's youthful innocence and naivete. I agree. Listening to this album is an almost painful experience, as it inevitably reminds me of the more tumultuous experiences of my life. Yet, despite all the pain and sadness, it is overwhelmingly hopeful.
Tracks:
1. Get Back: Nina Gordon wrote this song after being in a car crash, and it seems like she lost control of everything else after that: her life spun out of control along with the car. The guitar riffs towards the end are really impressive and the vocals are beautifully harmonized together.
The first lines of the record: "I'm spinning out, I can't control my car, it doesn't matter if I think you might be who you are. I misplaced it, I don't know where it's at and I could find it but I'd never get it back." The ideas of being out of control and loss run throughout the record.
2. All Hail Me: Louise Post wrote this song at about the time when "The Silence of The Lambs" came out Jefferey Dahmer was in the news. She was completely horrified by the way such violent people were being treated as heroes and were the objects of such perverse fascination, almost worship. The raw mix of this song is really good. The guitars are loud and crunchy and Nina's singing sounds almost inhuman. Chilling.
3. Seether: This song was written after Nina got so angry at someone she was arguing with she had this vision of scraping his face on pavement. She was horrified that she could be so violent and wrote Seether to describe the experience of having that kind of anger and rage. It came to symbolize all the emotions that girls are not supposed to feel because it isn't proper or seemly and how out of control you feel when you have them.
This is the Veruca Salt song that EVERYONE knows, as it got a lot of airplay in 1994 and launched them into stardom. It's a cute song, with catchy lyrics and guitar parts. The vocals are a lot more sing-songy in this song than the rest of the album. It's a good, fun, alt-pop song that's nice to sing along to. Unfortunately, the indie scene heard it and labeled the band as sellouts when they got play for such a poppy song. Their loss, I guess, because the rest of the album (except for Number One Blind) is totally different.
4. Spiderman '79: Louise Post penned this song "About this cool spider from the South Side [of Chicago] who broke my heart." This is the song about being so lost and overwhelmed in a relationship that you lose all sense of who you are. It's kind of a grunge power ballad. It reminds me of something that Alice in Chains would come up with. The guitars are really loud and slow, and the vocals are dreamlike and haunted. It is very intense.
5. Forsythia: This is such a happy song! It always makes me smile. It's about Nina's truth-telling problem when she was a kid; she apparently told outrageous lies about her family. The guitars are psychadelically distorted and the tone is really simple and sweet. It's fun to sing along to, like most of Nina's songs.
6. Wolf: This is one of the saddest songs I have ever heard, and it is about a cat. Apparently Louise owned a cat named Wold, who was like a child to her. He was a bit accident-prone and fell off of her balcony. She was on a sailing trip at the time. He died in the kitty hospital. She got really bad seasick, took a bunch of dramamine, and always blamed herself for his death.
This song really reflects this sad, painful atmosphere of grief. The lyrics are very nonsensical and full of disjointed images, as though someone had a fever- or was out on dramamine. The vocals are absolutely GORGEOUS in this song, especially the very end.
7. Celebrate You: This song, like Wolf, is very haunting. It is hard to tell what exactly it is about, but it is incredibly sad and entrancing. Post's vocals really shine on this track.
8. Fly: More sadness. All this song offers are vocals and a subdued bassline. Why Me? The song asks, questioning everything that is wrong with the world.
9. Number One Blind: This is one of the happier, more upbeat songs. It compares a boyfriend to Levelor brand blinds that keeps her in the dark. It's a really cute, fun, sing-songy type thing with some deeper issues in what's really going on in the relationship.
10. Victrola: This is one of the two straight-rock songs on the album, a tribute to the old-fashioned record player. It's fun to sing to. It's sung in a high pitched tone, sort of like "Hash Pipe" by Weezer.
11. Twinstar: This is such a sad, sad song. "Flying, when all I want to do is die. Feels like you're flying. Oh God, I wish that I could fly. You want to lift me up, but you don't know and you don't see, I am stuck in my ways." It is a song about being emotionally dead and wanting to die, because you are so depressed you can't see any way out of it. You see the world passing you by, and you just want to lie back and sleep.
12. 25: This is the second of the two rock songs. The guitars in this song are absolutely FANTASTIC- these girls can play just as good as any guy. The lyrics, however, continue in the fear of emotional stasis and stagnation: "I'm afraid I will never change" is the first line of the song, and the cry to "Bend me, shape me, anyway you want me" is truly disturbing- like any change would be better than no change at all, any situation would be better than the current one.
13. Sleeping Where I Want: The last song of the album is about sleep. Not the good, restful kind, but the light, disturbed sleep of someone haunted by nightmares and odd dreams. It is staying in bed all day long, hearing the birds singing outside. But it is living your own life, sleeping where you want to. It ends on a happy note: "You can go and blow my tiny bubble, blow me off without a care but I am sleeping where I want to."
Overall, I strongly recommend this album. It's a classic in my collection, right next to Liz Phair's "Exile in Guyville," Hole's "Live Through This," and Nirvana collection.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.