Customer Reviews

Early Year: Pine Box & Dance the Night Away (Reis)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Yeah, this is really good. Just like to add for the viewers that this is not much like "Massachusetts" in that it does not have a whole lot of backing instruments (including drums & electric guitar). Mostly just acoustic numbers with minimal amount of hoopla. Great songwriting and a few covers as a bonus.

this is an amazing set flat out..The second disc "dance the night away" sounds lush even though its simple acoustic stuff, very moody and dark sounding...country without the cornpone, but what really makes this is the "pine box" disc. the songs are creepy yet beautiful...music that sounds like it should be soundtrack music for the most dramatic scene in a movie...The Jimmy Webb covers on here are wonderful, especially Wichita Lineman.
If youre a Pernice Brothers fan, the voice is here but the music is a bit different...no matter how youre getting into this it is worth it.

I'm a big fan of country music. Old country, alt-country, and even some new country (Ryan Bingham, Sarah Jarosz, Hayes Carll). In my humble opinion (and lord knows we all have one), the Scud Mountain Boys Pine Box LP goes down as one of the best documents of the alt-country genre in the early mid-90's scene. You can put this eerie album right alongside the Jayhawks first Bunkhouse LP, Whiskeytown's Strangers Almanac and Faithless Street, all of Uncle Tupelo, and many of the early Freakwater albums. It's that good. And I personally disagree with other reviewers that their later albums were better. I wish they were. Instead, they sound to me overwrought (too many instruments) and nowhere near as heartfelt. I think it's because the Joe Pernice sound sounds best when it's really slowed down. Pine Box is, however, worth the price of admission. It's kind of a magical moment, I think, a statement that is a hard thing, for one, to capture and almost impossible to repeat. I'm thankful that they got it down and that they then tried other things, even if they didn't totally work for this listener. Highly recommend or just listen and make up your own mind.

these early songs will touch your soul and stir your mind. Joe Pernice's voice has the uncanny ability to ooze through every pore in your body and force you to feel his every emotion. if you hear it once, you'll never be the same.

I bought this strictly out of the love of their other CD on the Sub Pop label - Massachusetts. That CD was absolutely amazing. A strange twist of soft country feel, wrapped around dark lyrics, with none of the country TWANG. This CD, however, is none of that. This is almost all country and splattered with TWANG - pure and simple. And not what I'd really call "good country." (If there is such a thing.) But the one thing that this CD does show is that Massachusetts showed how much they had grown from this recording. Too bad they broke up.

Pretty good album, some songs are fantastic and creative. I ripped it on my IPod and left only a couple of tunes off and fully enjoy it. "Massachusetts", however, is where you want to start if you are interested in the SMB