Poster Children

I don't write much these days about music, but...

Early yesterday morning, I was fumbling around in my living room looking for my Outnumbered CD, fruitlessly, and with time running short I instead grabbed the only other Champaign-Urbana band album I own, the Poster Children's Flower Plower.

It had been years since I listened to the album, and damn, this one rocks. Rick's nerdy, caterwauling yowl of a voice and aggressive guitar, Rose's forcefully melodic bass and Shannon's impossibly busy drumming all combine to make one powerful, high-energy album. My drive to the train station began with the pummelling "Dangerous Life" (sample) and ended with the incredible "Evidence" which, in my effort to hear every last note, almost caused me to miss my train, all of the songs shaking the cobwebs out of my 6 A.M. brain and knocking the sleep out of the corners of my eyes. Flower Plower is hardly groundbreaking, just a particularly interesting example of post-punk which gives a hint at how powerful their live shows of that era must have been.

I don't really listen to stuff like this any more--with my current tastes running toward the Mountain Goats, M. Ward and Elliott Smith, with nothing heavier than Built to Spill--but this was a refreshingly invigorating change of pace.