Category Archives: The Rocket

Mar 31 2021
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CD, The Rocket

The Cranberries • No Need to Argue [CD]

Review originally published in The Rocket, Seattle, December 1994 and posted on my old blog, Skratchdisc, on 3/31//2010 – now posted here for your edification, entertainment and/or annoyance.

Yes, that’s right. There’s no need to argue: THE CRANBERRIES are as bad as their name. For one thing, lead singer Dolores O’Riordan goes out of her way to sing every song as if she’s yearning for something. Can someone yearn that much? And for what? Her caterwauling envelops the entire album, making the whole thing rather difficult to hear. It makes me want to pee. I mean, she spends so much time trying to uniquely sing every syllable, she’s barely singing anything understandable at all. If you want to hear lyrics rendered as gibberish, you might as well go put on Cocteau Twins! At least they’re good, and their lyrics aren’t supposed to mean anything!

But, let’s assume you can get past her voice (i.e., you like it). Musically, No Need to Argue is an amalgam of alternative rock styles (including nifty grunge-style guitar on “Zombie”) that we’ve all heard at least one too many times. Now, I know that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad album (hell, I liked Urge Overkill’s Saturation). But it’s basically the same album as their debut from last year, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? Maybe they’re answering the question of their first album’s title with No Need to Argue. But, as your mother probably told you any number of times, just because everybody’s jumping off a cliff doesn’t mean you have to, too. – Marsh Gooch

[no stars given in original review] (Island 314-524 050-2, 1994)

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Feb 17 2018
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CD, The Rocket, vinyl

The Jazz Butcher • Cult of the Basement [CD, LP]

[Originally published in The Rocket, Seattle, September 1990]

Once again, Pat Fish proves he’s the penultimate modern pop eclectic. Continuing from where last year’s [1989] overlooked but outstanding Big Planet Scarey Planet left off, Cult of the Basement is THE JAZZ BUTCHER’s latest go-round and it’s one hell of a ride.

Cult opens with the spy-themey “The Basement,” a recurring theme at that. Then, with a curt “and you can dance” a la Madonna, Butchy delivers “She’s On Drugs,” which may or mayn’t be about America’s bullet-braed diva. Lest we believe the Jazz Butcher’s always got something wacky up his sleeve, there’s “Girl Go,” released earlier this year [1990] as a single (in the UK) and a quintessential take on JB’s patented guitar-heavy reverb ballads. “Pineapple Tuesday” is in the same mode, but hardly a copy.

As a guitarist he’s great, as a singer, supreme. But first and foremost, Fish is a songwriter second to none. And if the world were a fair place, he and his band would be everywhere in 1990 except the basement.

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