SLOWFISH – THE UNDERWATER NEWSPAPER

NOVEMBER 11 – DECEMBER 1, 1993

Idaho

Year After Year

Caroline.Records

I passed up reading a feature on this relatively new band from the land of wildfires, Los Angeles. Strangely enough, I came up with a metaphor on my own, for Year After Year, the brand new-full-length from Idaho - the band, not the state. But, well, now it turns out that it really was arson (like I said it was all along...) and so my well-constructed and poetic comparison will have to rot (or burn), unheard.

Idaho, I’m assuming they’re from California, share a state with San Francisco’s Red House Painters in more ways than a physical one. This LP is long, syncopated and eerie, sounding clumsy—but isn’t, really. The duo of Jeff Martin and John Berry share most of the duties, two additional drummers on three cuts. It is clear that these two are emotionally charged, challenged, etc., to the end that, they do not need a full band. In the blood line of Codeine and the aforementioned RHP, this album may appear to drag to the unwanting ear, but to the keen aural observer, it is that the songs are simply overburdened with guts and other gore associated with being ’sensitive.’ If Nirvana is a musical shot of testosterone, Idaho is pen-point ? mankind on lithium.

Interesting and obviously introspective, never wallowing, nay — drowning in it — YearAfter Year is a fine record. And, although it has been hinted at by an ESTEEMED. colleague at another paper, that I might be simply fooling myself and you, poor readers, implying things for lack of anything truly great. I’ll say that I am totally indifferent to some of Idaho. This is another avenue of sick, heaven, plodding grooves, non-? concerned more with actual .value ? play — this is cool music, on par ? ? and consenting manic sublimes ?.

~Gary Heitman