CDNOW

2000

Idaho

People Like Us Should Be Stopped: Live Volume One

(Idaho Music)

By Aidin Vaziri

CDNOW Contributing Writer

A recently unearthed live relic from the era when this emotionally frail Los Angeles band was mistakenly lumped into the sad-core genre (see: Acetone, Low, Red House Painters), People Like Us Should Be Stopped is mostly made up of selections from Idaho’s 1993 Caroline debut, Year After Year. The sound quality could be better—much better, in fact— but the reach of singer-bassist Jeff Martin’s aching voice and guitarist John Berry’s slow-building sonic storms remains undiluted. As the band’s songwriting chops would not fully emerge until such later releases as 1996’s Three Sheets to the Wind, the true gems here come only after wading through considerable filler. But the rocky abandon exhibited on the new version of the minor-key masterpiece “God’s Green Earth” and the riveting liner notes penned by an older, wiser Berry make the experience well worth it.