TUFTS DAILY
TUFTS UNIVERSITY
MEDFORD, MA
DAILY – 5,000
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1993
Idaho
The
cover of Idaho’s album Year After Year is a thing
of beauty — a surreal landscape of pink bushes and blurry royal palm trees. It
promises much; or does it? After all, most surreal album covers scream “PRETENSION”
louder than all get out.
Well,
unfortunately, Idaho doesn’t just scream pretension, it is pretension. And bad pretension at that. From the first song, we knew it
would be dark. The opening bars of “God’s Green Earth,” the first track, are
dark, trying to be intense, and so pseudo-gothic.
Did
no one ever tell Idaho that Gothic went out over ten years ago? Can we say, “you missed the boat?” Peter Murphy may be able to pull that
miserable sound off but Idaho? Ew.
Lead
singer Jeff Martin moans in every song in a deep, sad voice, complaining about
the sad state of the world. Songs like “Let’s Cheat Death,” and “Endgame”
should be telling of this melancholia. It’s sad to see artists so trying to be Bauhaus.
We
suppose that the music on this CD is good. After all, the band members seem to
be able to play their instruments, which is the very least we would expect from
music today. But all the songs sound the same. That is,,
with the exception of “One Sunday,” which is actually a catchy, entertaining
piece of music — once you screen out that annoying vocalist.
Basically,
the only thing that Idaho has to recommend it is the pretty album cover and the
funky black and orange disc. The world would be better served if Idaho returned
to waiting tables or whatever it is they did before they began to sing. —MU