Customer Reviews

Down Here: Collected Recordings 1983-1985

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This CD sounds better with every listen, and the amount of listens per timespan is definitely on the increase! At first, it sounded like some decent psychedelic-ish rock or pop (it's hard to put it in any one specific category). After the initial listen, something strongly pulled me back to it--a powerful sense that there was much more there than a cursory listen could reveal. My intuition proved correct because this is turning out to be one of the more rewarding CDs I've ever heard. It kind of reminds me of those "find the hidden pictures within the big picture" puzzles from childhood. The more you look (or in this case, listen), the more that is revealed. Each element--guitars, lyrics, bass, vocals, drums--is a rich study on its own, but together as one, the sound is singularly perfect. The liner notes mention comparisons to bands such as Television, Wire, Ramones, Grateful Dead, Byrds, etc., etc., but these comparisons do not begin to do justice--the style is totally unique. I suppose I could keep going on and on, but if you're a fan of totally unpretentious, deeply-moving-but-not-wimpy rock, you should certainly give this music a try!

And the most amazing thing of all is that these tracks have gone almost completely unnoticed for 20 years! A true buried treasure!

Every other song is a good one, and that's a lot, but some are under-produced and others are too gritty...they require patience and don't reach their potential. Overall, a used CD is a good buy for folks who like grunge. Now, for a long and probably boring analysis:

Punk probably punk'd these guys.
There are some nice changes in tempo, vocals, guitars, piano, even whistling that move in and out. Like another reviewer here on Amazon said, these songs stand up well to repeated listening. But while that reviewer wasn't sure about Crippled Pilgrims style, I hear a punk group in what was becoming a post-punk era. Many were trapped by Dead Kennedies' attitude -- they had a good first record with "musicality" (riffs, etc.) -- but then they went for straight noise, mocking groups that did much more than screaming (hence their dig at Joy Division in the song Nazi Punks F___ Off with the introductory voiceover "overproduced by Martin Hannett." Punk purists became their own sort of Nazis, claiming only fast-paced guitar and faster vocals were real punk...and this weighed heavily in the background in 1983-85.
I first heard Crippled Pilgrims on a punk radio program in the D.C. area in 1984. But I didn't know it. "Lots of people going nowhere, lots of people going nowhere..." and did they say who was singing? No. So, no kidding, I've had those lyrics in my head for nearly 25 years and bought approx. 5 CDs over the years by punk groups from that era which had song titles that might match People Going Nowhere. I had given up (Amazon's song search is not very good) but lucked out last week using the general search in music. So if you have a song stuck in your head, don't give up!
But I digress, and this is a disservice to the CD. It has 3 solid songs: People Going Nowhere (2 versions, both are good), Dissolving and the alternate version of Black and White is a pleasant surprise compared to the normal version. Listen to both versions of Black and White and you'll detect how their production let them down: the alternate version sounds like it's played through mud, but whoever produced the normal version made the guitar work too harsh and busy. Down Here has great potential (not surprising the CD is named after this tune), Oblivious and Numb and Calculating are catchy, What You Lost is lyrically strong. It's frustrating that they have many good elements, but then have lousy stretches or fail to build on strengths. A shame, I don't fault the artists.