Customer Reviews

Two Steps from the Middle Ages

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

 

 

This is the last GT album, but since GT and Loud Family have been, Mark E Smith-like, a collective and unstable band (both with members coming and going and arriving again a few years later) under the direction of their only permanent member and long-time leader, the band here sounds far different than the first phase at the start of the 80s. Like Sonic Youth with Rather Ripped, Yo La Tengo with Summer Sun, Pere Ubu with Cloudland, the Velvets 3rd s/t LP or arguably The Fall's This Nation's Saving Grace, this record displays an experimental fringe band who decides well into its checkered career to follow efforts critically acclaimed but perhaps of less than chartbreaking sales with a streamlined, more accessible, pop album. Pop if only by comparison, of course.

Listening to this again recently, after I had been disappointed for a long time by TSFTMA, I found it has worn well with time. Mitch Easter here, in hindsight, applies some of the richer textures that he would apply to Pavement with Brighten the Corners: he takes a determinedly quirky and eccentric band with a literate and vocally challenged frontman and by deepening the sound's depth, produces a record that moves forward rather than sideways or spirally. Like BTC, TSFTMA at first may sound too mainstream. But, the vocal compression into the sonic density behind the singer on both albums builds into a propulsive vehicle rather than an ornamented artifact.

The backup vocals by Shelly LaFreniere and Donnette Thayer integrate much more into the leads by Scott Miller, who sings noticeably less idiosyncratically than on his previous fascinating but admittedly oblique LPs. This allows the band to eschew solos and tangents. In a De Lorean is one of the band's best songs since it fits the tune to the title, and soars. Leilani approaches slowly and swayingly like its title. Throwing the Election fits with its anthemic insistence the lyrical admonitions. Only Picture of Agreeability returns to the jittery keyboard ditties that earned the band one of its genre categories as New Wave. A few songs just meander along plainly, but this happens on any Scott Miller LP, as if to balance the exuberance on other tracks. His genius emerges on all of his total recordings, but not in all of his specific songs. In a way, the melancholy prevalent here also in hindsight resembles the autumnal last CD by LF, Attractive Nuisance. Mainly, for TSFTMA the amplified arrangements and close harmonies are very linear and cropped down--not that the synths and big drums are absent, for this very much sounds like an end-of-the-80s LP, --so they can be stacked on rather than spread out by Easter's production.

Like Summer Sun or Rather Ripped, the results may sound samey, as if one song broken with only brief pauses. I would, however, not recommend this most accessible of their LPs as an introduction to GT, for its strongest melodies and most characteristic songs and lyrics occur on the three earlier LPs (see also the marvelously titled compilation Tinker to Evers to Chance). But, if you have the more acclaimed Lolita Nation, the more consistent Big Shot Chronicles, or the rawer Real Nighttime LPs, you should complete your collection of GT's "real" studio contributions with this often overlooked selection.

Two Steps is an absolute must for Game Theory/Loud Family & Scott Miller fans in general.Very similar to Tinkers to Evers, but with a bit of Lolita Nation which is in my opinion one of thier very best. To be fair, if you are into this sound,you really need all of them as each one has its own distinctive mood & style. There will never be a band like Game Theory (with the exception of the Loud Family of coarse) Way ahead of their time,its a shame these cds just keep getting harder to find & keep going up in price. One things for sure at this rate it won't be long until thier unavailable. Get em'while ya still can!

Shame about these Game Theory albums drying up. The Big Shot Chronicles and its siblings were my favorite American music in the 80s. At a time when everything that came out of the big studios was banal or worse, the underground pop scene was bursting at the seems with great talent. America, the giant mecca of opportunity, seemed even more closed off to its own music than ever before. The studios churned out more Paula Abdul and "We Built This City" trash, while good bands were "building the city" for real.

Game Theory (and Loud Family) were headed by the overly intellectual Scott Miller, whose nasal voice and obtuse (though powerful) lyrics where only matched by a songcrafting that was second to none. Absolutely the best stuff of that era.

Two Steps from the Middle Ages is special for me. Songs like "Throwing the Election" and "What the Whole World Wants" are a part of my life, my memories, and my world-view. I even remember hearing a song (on public radio) before I knew the album was out ... It was "In a Delorean" ... At that moment it seemed like they would break out into the open, but alas, it was not to be.

By the time Nirvanna came along, the cooporate music business redifined underground and crushed it forever. As Scott sang in "Throwing the Election" : "I gotta feeling its all rigged. I gotta feeling its over now. I gotta feeling the votes are in and I got none."

This is the last GT album, but since GT and Loud Family have been, Mark E Smith-like, a collective and unstable band (both with members coming and going and arriving again a few years later) under the direction of their only permanent member and long-time leader, the band here sounds far different than the first phase at the start of the 80s. Like Sonic Youth with Rather Ripped, Yo La Tengo with Summer Sun, Pere Ubu with Cloudland, the Velvets 3rd s/t LP or arguably The Fall's This Nation's Saving Grace, this record displays an experimental fringe band who decides well into its checkered career to follow efforts critically acclaimed but perhaps of less than chartbreaking sales with a streamlined, more accessible, pop album. Pop if only by comparison, of course.

Listening to this again recently, after I had been disappointed for a long time by TSFTMA, I found it has worn well with time. Mitch Easter here, in hindsight, applies some of the richer textures that he would apply to Pavement with Brighten the Corners: he takes a determinedly quirky and eccentric band with a literate and vocally challenged frontman and by deepening the sound's depth, produces a record that moves forward rather than sideways or spirally. Like BTC, TSFTMA at first may sound too mainstream. But, the vocal compression into the sonic density behind the singer on both albums builds into a propulsive vehicle rather than an ornamented artifact.

The backup vocals by Shelly LaFreniere and Donnette Thayer integrate much more into the leads by Scott Miller, who sings noticeably less idiosyncratically than on his previous fascinating but admittedly oblique LPs. This allows the band to eschew solos and tangents. In a De Lorean is one of the band's best songs since it fits the tune to the title, and soars. Leilani approaches slowly and swayingly like its title. Throwing the Election fits with its anthemic insistence the lyrical admonitions. Only Picture of Agreeability returns to the jittery keyboard ditties that earned the band one of its genre categories as New Wave. A few songs just meander along plainly, but this happens on any Scott Miller LP, as if to balance the exuberance on other tracks. His genius emerges on all of his total recordings, but not in all of his specific songs. In a way, the melancholy prevalent here also in hindsight resembles the autumnal last CD by LF, Attractive Nuisance. Mainly, for TSFTMA the amplified arrangements and close harmonies are very linear and cropped down--not that the synths and big drums are absent, for this very much sounds like an end-of-the-80s LP, --so they can be stacked on rather than spread out by Easter's production.

Like Summer Sun or Rather Ripped, the results may sound samey, as if one song broken with only brief pauses. I would, however, not recommend this most accessible of their LPs as an introduction to GT, for its strongest melodies and most characteristic songs and lyrics occur on the three earlier LPs (see also the marvelously titled compilation Tinker to Evers to Chance). But, if you have the more acclaimed Lolita Nation, the more consistent Big Shot Chronicles, or the rawer Real Nighttime LPs, you should complete your collection of GT's "real" studio contributions with this often overlooked selection.

Game Theory's final album is often considered to be their weakest- that's probably why used copies of it tend to be reasonably priced, while beloved records such as Lolita Nation and Real Nighttime are slightly more expensive than some African republics. If you ask me, that's pretty f***ing unfair. After all, Two Steps From the Middle Ages does have some of Scott Miller's very best compositions: "Room For One More, Honey" is full of deliriously twisted harmonies and melodic left turns, while "Rolling With The Moody Girls" has some of the quirkiest and most irresistible vocal hooks ever committed to tape. "The Picture Of Agreeability" manages to shoehorn aching beauty, sly cynicism, and experimental instrumentation into a less-than-one-minute running length, and "Amelia, Have You Lost" is a marvel of fractured prettiness. "What The Whole World Wants" is a poetically disaffected buzzsaw rocker, and "Wish I Could Stand Or Have" is a harrowing, heartbreaking, and mercilessly catchy tale of longing and obsession. Miller saves the best for last though, closing out the album with the gorgeously apocalyptic one-two punch of "Throwing The Election" and "Initiations Week." The former is an ageless evocation of angst in all its forms, a hook-filled rumination on personal and political agitation. The latter, meanwhile, is a haunting and ominous acoustic ballad, with one of the most unforgettable melodies ever to emerge from a human brain. If you'll allow me a Smiths comparison, it's their "I Won't Share You." And the album as a whole? Well, it's at least as good as The Queen Is Dead.