Customer Reviews

Hope Chest

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Hope Chest" collects the early, independently released tracks that 10,000 Maniacs recorded before signing with Elektra. The mix of styles from post-punk to new wave to neo-reggae to dance beat is fascinating in itself. Equally interesting is the groups' subject matter in its songs: a painter ("Poor De Chirico"); a bullfighter ("Death of Manolete"); atomic boms and/or warfare ("Orange" and "Grey Victory"); multiple personality disorder ("Katrina's Fair") and two tracks putting anti-war British poet Wilfred Owens' verse to music ("The Latin One" and "Anthem For Doomed Youth"). It is clear from the very start that the Maniacs never intended to build a career on catchy pop melodies about love. And for the most part, they remained true to that vision in their music. The sound is a little more raw, a little rougher; Natalie's vocals sound a bit immature at times, but she was only in high school when some of the tracks were recorded. The polish of later CD's is missing, and that is exactly what makes "Hope Chest" so engaging. "Planned Obsolescence," the CD's opening track, may be the most amazing song the group ever recorded. With its loopy new wave sound and its insistent beat and Natalie's echoing lyrics, it still asks a profound question: Can science and fact ever truly replace faith and belief? This CD has become more of a favorite the longer I have owned it. If it is not in your collection, it is an amazing document of a tremendously talented group at the very beginning of its all too brief career.

This is really interesting stuff. There seems to be a lot of different influences here, while later 10KM releases have a more concise feel, as a whole. Hope Chest is more varied. I'm not going to pretend I know what those sounds are (except for the obvious reggae influence in several of the songs), but I do know there're a lot of them. It's the sound of a band experimenting and it sounds good. There's a certain raw edge here and the lack of production values only adds to that energy.

However, as some have noted, this might just be for diehard 10KM fans. The main reason for this, I think, is that the sound and the songwriting are a little rough around the edges; meaning, a lot of what Natalie sings is slurred mostly because the words aren't always timed perfectly to the music. The effect is rather as if Natalie is singing in a foreign language (which she actually is, when the odd Latin phrase pops up). You can see how she slurs many words and phrases when you try to follow the lyrics on the lyric sheet. This could possibly put off the casual listener.

My suggestion for anyone wanting to sample the Maniacs is to start with The Wishing Chair (my favorite) or In My Tribe, then on to Blind Man's Zoo and Our Time in Eden (and then possibly on to Natalie's solos), then back to Hope Chest. I think it could be something of an experience to hear Hope Chest after hearing their more finely tuned records. Well, it was for me, anyway. It's also interesting, I think, to compare the four songs on Hope Chest ("Grey Victory", "Tension[Makes a Tangle]", "Daktari" & "My Mother the War") to their rerecorded equivalents on Wishing Chair.

You really have to be a true fan to enjoy all this. It shows the great song writing ideas that were going on in the early years, but also displays a lot of inexperience and not the greatest recording quality.

For the reviewers who expected this to be a typical 10,000 maniacs album, I can understand why you would view this as a less than appealing novelty. This is anything but 10,000 maniacs and anything but typical.

But I disagree with the idea that this album should only be purchased by the very ardent completist. That is an injustice for this very sincere effort.

I've never been a 10,000 maniacs fan(which is probably why I enjoy this album so much), but this could be considered a very different band. This is an album of influences and youthful idealism. This is protopunk, The Clash, Blondie and antiwar poetry. If 10,000 maniacs would have stayed the course and continued this type of music they would have a very different legacy today.

I stumbled on this fortuitously, I hope it will find others who will appreciate it as I do.

As someone who had his teen years in the eighties, I was gladly surprised to have heard this album which depicts the first recordings by the band at the beginning of that decade. There's a blend of styles that range from reggae to ska and new wave, that show where Natalie Merchant and company came from. Filled with an innocent flavor that makes it all the more attractive, not your "typical" 10,000 Maniacs album, yet an extraordinary documentary on the band's original work.

"the hope chest" is the only 10,000 maniacs album that i can fully enjoy as an album. the beautiful spontaneity of natalie's youth is so apparent and shining that after hearing "the hope chest" one is ruined for the stenciled drudgery of their subsequent releases. for me, this is the only album in which i can realize, and hear in the music, the passion which this young woman felt for her ideas.

Listening to this music makes me irritated that I wasn't savvy enough to discover The Secrets of I Ching when it first came out - this stuff would have been much better in its early eighties context next to chronic town, Murmur, reckoning, and Cypress. Let's face empirical FACT - at this point, Natalie Merchant couldn't sing. Why isn't this chronicled, ever???? At some points, she is horridly off-pitch (FLAT). Nor does she support the air column - very wan and wispy. However, the charm and persona of a literate young woman with multiple historical, artistic, and social fascinations shines through much of the material. The recording is quite amateurish, but you can tell that everyone's having a blast - a geeky, insular, eighties alternative blast, but a blast nonetheless. To be quite honest, the Human Conflict No. 5 material is somewhat weak (too much reggae/ska/dub experiments - thank goodness the group settled into shimmering folk-rock by The Wishing Chair), but several of the I Ching songs are awesome and point to future glory - "Katrina's Fair," "The Latin One," "Poor de Chirico," the original "My Mother the War," and especially the spectacular "Death of Manolete." If you like In My Tribe and The Wishing Chair, you might want to supplement your collection with this disc.

I own a couple of the early vinyl records that 10,000 Maniacs self-released. The tracks on this CD come from those early records. The tracks on this CD sound great and don't differ noticeably from the original vinyl mixes. This original line-up of the band, including both Natalie Merchant and John Lombardo, would only release "The Wishing Chair" LP/CD after these recordings before John left the group.

(For those of you who are hardcore fans of the band, I think it's interesting to note that the mix, or recording, included on this CD of "National Education Week" differs significantly from the mix the band released on vinyl as a B-side to "My Mother The War". About one third of the music and vocals are missing, and a keyboard part has been added to the beginning of the song.)

This album is great, but admiteddly, it takes an acquired taste to appreciate it. If you are a fan of 10,000 Maniacs or of Natalie Merchant, this album has a lot of good tracks that show off their early prowess as a band. A lot of the songs sound light with little production, but it serves to focus on the groups ability to sound great by themselves. Natalie's early vocals are clearly not as strong as her later work, but she does sound fresh, young, and able to belt it out.

While many are quick to dismiss the Maniacs' older material, Hope Chest provides a document of history. Never again would the Maniacs play with this youthful exuberance again. Sure, the writing isn't fantastic and there are traces of unprofessionalism here and there... But this music is simply amazing. I encourage you to open up your ears (as the title of a Maniacs bootleg would say) and give this record a chance. After loving Our Time In Eden to death when I first purchased it (my first 10,000 Maniacs record), I travelled backwards in the Maniacs' catalogue (excluding MTV Unplugged, which I bought after The Wishing Chair) to find that while their form was probably the best around the time of Blind Man's Zoo, the music here simply does not sound tired or worn out, unlike the majority of MTV Unplugged. This record has some amazing songs, including "Planned Obsolescence," "Katrina's Fair," the awesome "Poor de Chirico," and the quirky but oddly beautiful (much like Ms. Merchant herself, especially back then) "Orange." Also worth noting is John Lombardo's vocal performance on the haunting "Anthem for Doomed Youth." One cannot call oneself a Maniacs fan without first delving into their sprightly and gorgeous past.