Rope a Dope [Import]

Antietam | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 31, 1994)
• Original Release Date: December 19, 1994
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Homestead
• ASIN: B000000IP7
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #184,941 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Hands Down

2. What She Will

3. Pine

4. Certain Muse

5. Hardly Believe

6. Graveyard

7. Rope-A-Dope

8. Leave Home

9. Betwixt

10. Silver Solace

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Still stuck in my CD Player after four years, July 27, 2000

By 

Frazer Dobson (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rope a Dope (Audio CD)

I have been listening to Antietam for fifteen years now, and it's hard for me to believe they haven't yet found a wider audience. All of their albums are fine, and each one has a very distinct sound; the common thread is Tara Key's guitar, which is as instantly recognizable as any male guitar hero you'd care to name. Key is, without question, the best female guitarist of this or any decade. And on Rope-A-Dope, she cuts it loose. Sure, that squall has always been there (even on the low-key Burgoo), but it's never been as pummellingly beautiful as it is here. Check the last song, the ten-minute Silver Solace--between Key's vocal parts, she tears out molten lava streams of noise that alternately coalesce into recognizable forms and float off into the stratosphere. It's a powerfully moving song, and the music perfectly fits with the bitterness of the lyrics. Other delights: the hard, bluesy Hands Down (organ fills by Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo), the gorgeous yearning Pine, the quietly menacing Leave Home. There's not a bum track on this record, not even a lesser track. Buy it and make this band rich!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding modern punk, October 20, 2005

By 

Mike Smith (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Rope a Dope (Audio CD)

I first saw Antietam open for Yo La Tengo, at a small club in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I found myself wishing I was at an Antietam concert instead--I didn't ever want them to leave the stage.
Antietam rocked out harder than maybe any band I'd ever seen before. They might look like a bunch of truckers, and their lead singer/guitarist might look like a chain-smoking friend of your stepmom, but they sound like no one else. By the time Yo La Tengo took the stage, the entire crowd was sweat-drenched and exhausted and almost nothing Yo La Tengo could dish out met the high standard of true punk rock that Antietam had set.
I bought this album shortly after that show, and though it's not as intense or as loud as their live show, there are some great songs here.
"Rope-a-Dope" is a perfect CD to play incredibly loud speeding with the windows down, weaving in and out of traffic, cutting other cars off left and right. Listen to it when you're angry, or when you're feeling great, or when you're getting pumped to go out for a late night on the town. It's exciting, deep, intense, and unique.
I plan on getting Antietam's every album--and I'll definitely see them again live. They're terrific.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great band, June 7, 2006

By 

Ludwig J. Pluralist "avantepopgospeler" (Beacon, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rope a Dope (Audio CD)

Antietam is a great band, and have been since their debut back in 1985 (speaking personally, a memorable year for me, in which I graduated college with a B.A. in sociology. I often found myself, particularly when browsing book and record shops, thinking about the politics and sociology of pop/rock/punk).

Here, the band proves, some ten years later, that they continued going strong through the 90s. Their sound is raw and great, and, put simply, they rock. Tara Key and company simply deliver the goods, and what wonderful goods they are.

One last note; TK is part of a really fine movie moment, playing, with my fave band Yo La Tengo, a version of the Velvet Underground in the movie I Shot Andy Warhol; like this movie, Antietam is smart, indy, very cool, underrated, and deeply satisfying.