Customer Reviews

Garden Variety

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

 

 

With a band name more suggestive of a cheap packet of garden seeds, as opposed to anything Greenday may covet, Garden Variety's 1996 debut has 15 tracks, all sounding like an angrier Superchunk, and all nearly interchangable in their similiarity. This can be a bad thing for half-listening ears; the drone of these punkish songs may sound like the same song repeating, and a good thing for the attentive, who may find the exceptional hoarse garage vocals, constant guitar, and loud drums, pounding the same path in each song deceiving, as it leaves subtle progressions and changes to the sonic landscape, more revealing in it's totality, than the sum of it's parts, like a plot of bare earth becoming a garden with a little help from Miracle-Gro. Drummer Joe Gorelick created the cool street scene artwork on the CD front and back cover, looking like the work of an excited Van Gogh after an outing with Greenday.

...amazing guitars, brilliant drumming and scream/singing that could make you cry with happiness.

Yes, Garden Variety were a good band, but I'd hardly call them emo, and yes they are from the tri-state area, but they are from Long Island, not from New Jersey.

uh, I think you are thinking about another band. This was the emo/punk band Garden Variety from NJ who broke up about 5 years ago. They sounded like Jawbreaker with loooonger songs. Members are now in Radio 4.

This debut CD by a band now known (I believe) only as "Garden" was a strong first effort, with an earthy combination of acoustic instruments and co-ed vocal harmonies that pre-saged more recent acts like Rusted Root. Nothing on "Garden Variety" is quite as hard-driving as Rusted Root's "Drum Trip/Ecstasy," but certainly the percussion is similar on the opening track, "Here and Now."

The strings also work very well here; rather than as ambient orchestration, they're used as a second or third instrumental melody, much the same way that 10,000 Maniacs did on their "Unplugged" CD.

I've never had the pleasure of seeing Garden Variety live, but this CD was good enough to make me wonder if they're coming my way anytime soon.