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Just Like the Fambly Cat

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Grandaddy

 
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Just Like the Fambly Cat
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Average: 4.0 (109 ratings)

Grandaddy end with a final, wondrous whimper.

  • We Say...

    Review by Jon Dolan

    It's like one of the spaceships on the cover of an old ELO record crash-landed in the wasteland suburbs of California to smolder between the Wal-Mart and the KFC — Grandaddy's songs begin where yesterday's shiniest dreams burn and die. Jason Lytle, the brains behind the band, retools space-racing '70s prog-pop into bummed out trance-rock, music that's just as transporting but with a woozy sense of post-modern malaise. His albums are populated with drunken robots, people who'd rather spend time with machines than humans, late summer road trips that never quite find the horizon. As the Steinbeckian wordplay in the title of his band's fourth and final album suggests, his characters are folks on the American margins.

    But rather than cling to fantasies of promise, they'd rather escape into the strange magic of their messy heads, like slacker Tom Joads with crap temp jobs, cool record collections and barely enough fight in 'em to fire up the bong. On songs like "Jeez Louse" and "Elevate Myself," synths and guitars coalesce warmly with Lytle's Muppet-like voice, and the music teeters between ethereal take-off and an existential failure to launch. "Summer... It's Gone" celebrates loss with chiming bells and wistful acoustic strumming. "Rear View Mirror" rocks out as Lytle tries to "drive somewhere real and nearer," only to go in circles.

    This is both Grandaddy's draftiest record and its most confused, which is saying something for a guy who once wrote a nine-minute song about time travel. But Lytle's still too in love with the power of plugging in, and with the odd beauty of human error, to let himself (or the listener) fade into sallow defeat. As much as he'd love to lift off, our ruined world is his world too.

  • They Say...

    Review by Tim Sendra, All Music Guide

    Grandaddy's final album serves as a timely reminder of the group's strengths. They manage to pull themselves out of the slump they were in and deliver a fine epitaph. Their previous album, Sumday, was a disappointment, a definite comedown from the heights of Sophtware Slump. It sounded like the work of a band coasting along without any commitment to the material -- a good band with some fine songs but still not living up to its potential. This album sounds like the work of a band with something to prove, maybe due to the tensions that led to the band breaking up before the release of Just Like the Fambly Cat, or perhaps resulting from the realization that the bandmembers had been wasting their talent. Certainly "Jeez Louise," the fiery rocker that kicks off the album, dispels any fear that the record might be as laid-back and detached as Sumday was at its core. So do the handful of similarly energetic tunes like the new wavey instrumental "Skateboarding Saves Me Twice," the cheesy drum machine-driven "Elevate Myself," and the surging "Disconnecty." The diversity of sounds on the album is nice and keeps things interesting on the surface, but what really jump-starts the proceedings are two things: first, the sheer tunefulness of the midtempo songs like the wistful "Summer... It's Gone," "Campershell Dreams," and "This Is How It Always Starts," which drift like autumn leaves blowing across front lawns, blown gently along by gentle vocal harmonies, richly layered guitars, cheap keyboards, and Jason Lytle's fragile vocals; and second, the epic sweep of the ballads like "Guide Down Tonight," the guitar blowout "Rear View Mirror," and "The Animal World." There is a depth of emotion and seriousness here that had been missing on Sumday, Lytle's vocals have a gravity they lacked before, and the bandmembers seem to mean every note they play this time. Not that sincerity means much when there are no melodies you can hum in the shower -- here you get both. Grandaddy's breakup seemed like an afterthought when it was announced a couple months before the release of Fambly Cat; now it seems like a real shame, like they will be missed. Hopefully whatever incarnation the various members (and especially Lytle) resurface in can produce work this rich and powerful. If not, at leastGrandaddy managed to go out on a very high note.

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