Customer Reviews

Human Cannonball

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1993's Human Cannonball was the second (and final) album from School of Fish, an alternative rock band that almost, but not quite, made it big when people cared about this kind of music. The single "3 Strange Days", from the band's debut album was a minor hit, but for whatever reason didn't bring the band much attention. This is a shame, because School of Fish was easily as good, if not better than, most of that era's other alternative rock bands.

Human Cannonball isn't quite as good as their excellent self-titled album. There are more "filler" songs on this album, but there are still plenty of great tracks as well. Strong songs like "Take Me Anywhere", "1/2 a Believer", "Stand in the Doorway", and especially "Kerosene" more than make up for the album's weaker songs. They're not overly poppy, but they are catchy enough to really stick in your head hours after you listen to the album.

Sadly, the band members went their separate ways after this album. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Josh Clayton-Felt released a pair of impressive solo albums before dying of cancer in 2000.

Please buy this CD! SOF is one of the most under-rated bands in history. There are lots of catchy songs in this compilation, such as "Take Me Anywhere" (their biggest hit), "Everyword", "Blackout", etc. SOF was a bona-fide Alternative band, and a fine one at that. It's a shame they didn't get the recognition they deserved so that they could have gone onto bigger and better things.

I was born about the same time as rock n roll and, in my humble opinion, this album is damn near perfect. It rocks, it has intelligent lyrics, it has clean, beautiful melodies blended with straight up rock. It's well mixed and engineered, too, but it's the music that matters most... and these are simply great songs that you will sing in your head (or out loud) for days, after listening to them. Fountain and Kerosene both blow me away, and who can't love a song like Fuzzed and Fading?

I really like this record. Why is it so disliked? I really am curious. There's catchy melodies, good riffs. This is straight ahead rock. Like so many, I grew up worshipping Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains & Nirvana. Although very different in sound, this album should have been enjoyable to a similar crowd. Maybe I'm crazy...whatever.