REVIEWS:
A rather out of the ordinary band from Seattle (but having nothing to do with grunge), The Presidents Of The United States Of America were an oddity in their instrumental approach, featuring bassitarist (2 string guitar) and vocalist Chris Ballew, guitbassist (3 string guitar) Dave Dederer and no string drummer Jason Finn, and lyrics, singing about strange topics like froggies, peaches, lumps, kitties, boll weevils, and the like. They released only two studio albums during their limited career, their hit self titled debut and the very weak II, plus a compilation album Pure Frosting.
--Nick Karn
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
The Presidents' debut is an entertaining collection of songs that deal mostly with cartoonish, humorous topics not meant to be taken seriously, which is somewhat refreshing coming in the midst of the often too self-loathing and depressing grunge scene, so no mainstream band was writing such amazingly ridiculous songs like "Peaches" (peaches come from a can, they were put there by a man), the funky, self-explanatory "Boll Weevil", the celebrity mocking "Naked And Famous" (featuring a guitar solo by Kim Thayil of Soundgarden), and "Kitty" (kitty at my foot and I want to touch it), the sing-along "Lump" (about some kind of female bog creature) and the entertaining failed rock star song "We Are Not Going To Make It" at the time, not even close. The choruses are no slouches either, and the playing is still fairly heavy despite the overall instrumentation and power lacking in 'balls' on account of the missing guitar strings, which was often assumed (correctly) that the band lacked talent. Overall, the entertainment value is high, the songwriting is good, and it's certainly an interesting listen, but it does get old after awhile.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
The band's sophomore set proves without a doubt their limited songwriting abilities, as the novelty has by now worn off. Throughout this release, they just can't seem to create much enjoyably amusing without sounding completely stale or incredibly corny, which wasn't the case on the debut, as that album flowed with pure fun almost from beginning to end. On this one it's only about four songs deep before things get old, and interestingly, those four songs are actually pretty worthwhile.
"Ladies And Gentlemen Part I" is a cool introduction track with nice melody and good live energy, while "Lunatic To Love" moves at great entertaining speed, "Volcano" is a decent enough rocker, and "Mach 5" has a great riff and the most infectious hook on the album. After that, however, it's all downhill from there - "Twig", "Bug City", the horrible 'Brady Bunch goes to Hawaii on their vacation'-inspired "Tiki God", the unbearable singalongs "Toob Amplifier" (I'm gonna buy myself a toob amplifier, now I'm gonna blow a big one) and "Froggy" (froggy jumped all over the stage that day), and the atrocious soul music-ish chorus of "Puffy Little Shoes" are all painful evidence that this band made one studio album too many.
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