This song absolutely destroyed me when I was 11. I had never heard anything like it ever before and almost 20 years on I am still looking to emulate that crushingly immediate sound.
The outro from 2.33 onwards increased to a severe minor chord crescendo in my dad’s stolen headphones turned up as high as a tiny one deck player would go. I used to press them closer to my ears as I lay in bed at night with the bootleg tape becoming thinner and thinner from wear and eventually unravelling, as my mind had.
This almost secret mid-album track, a torrent of fierce overdriven anguish, like nothing else they had recorded filled me with utter excitement and still to this day makes my stomach lurch. Andy Sturmer’s voice, perfect in-tune wailing, that persistant drum beat, Queen-esque interludes, this was fearless soungwriting. It changed my world and I am still feeling the reverberations of that revelation in my 11 year old mind today.
