Mrs Grundy - Your Stinky Candy | ||
Tracks:
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Album Cover: ![[Image]](../../Images/StinkyCD3.jpg) |
Label: Screaming Yuppie Records Producers: Matt Scharfglass Year: 1998 Total Playing Time: 43:06 m:s Review date: 5 June 1999 |
| Web site: www.mrsgrundy.com
Email: info@mrsgrundy.com | ||
| Rating: 7 | ||
| Verdict: Simplistic charm & humour on display | ||
| Mrs Grundy consists of Peter Levin on drums & vocals and Matt Scharfglass on everything else. Matt, a professional musician for 10 years, has played a wide spectrum of styles and transcribes for "Guitar World". Peter is in band called Dangerman and his past activities includes playing with John McEnroe. Take pity on Matt's neighbours because according to the liner notes the majority of this was recorded in Matt's NY apartment. The whole idea was to go for a raw 'under produced' live sound. The actual music itself comes across as power-pop but with a few touches of rock guitar, which is the main reason that this maintains my interest. "Sanctuary" is a blast of raw punk influenced pop that reminds me of The Offspring (not that I'm that familiar with what they sound like!). "Blessing" is a riff driven tune and improves upon the opening track. "One In Nine" is a modern loose sounding tune written about Matt's mother's battle against breast cancer. "Fall" is a jangly ballad. I'd describe "Monte Carlo" and "Ron Kuby" as anonymous power-pop. The acoustic guitar (& mandolin) comes out for "Matzonballs" resulting in one of the album highlights. "Modern Rock Rules" is a brooding piece about answering an ad for a bass player. "Butt Cheeks" & "Mirrors" feature more power-pop. "The Best Time To Talk To The Bass Player's Girlfriend" is during an instrumental apparently. "Break" features the inevitable Nirvana influence, but has some good guitar work. The lyrics display a healthy sense of humour mixed with intelligence throughout. The whole approach is a shade too 90s for me, especially on the more straightforward pop-power numbers. Having said that, it does have a certain simplistic charm that can be quite refreshing after listening to something like Dream Theater. Of course, that "simplistic charms" means the band achieved their aim of creating an entertaining album using their minimalist recording studio approach. | ||
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