Go to the Sugar Altar

Kelley Deal 6000

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 10, 1997)
• Original Release Date: 1996
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: New West Records
• ASIN: B000002RB5
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #411,503 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Track Listings

1. Canyon

2. How About Hero

3. Dammit

4. Sugar

5. Hundred Tires

6. Head of the Cult

7. Nice

8. Trixie Delicious

9. Marooned

10. Tick Tock

11. Mr. Goodnight

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

There's two types of identical twins in the world: those content to star in Doublemint commercials, and those who, because they find different callings and develop at different rates, must carve out separate spaces. The Deal sisters of Akron, Ohio seem of the latter category. While Kim was helping invent modern rock in the Pixies and then the Breeders, Kelley was learning how to play guitar, taking a backseat in Kim's Breeders, then getting hooked on and busted for heroin. But the prodigal sister has returned, and with her new band The Kelley Deal 6000 she blossoms into a creative force rivalling her more accomplished family member.

Her band's 1996 debut, Go to the Sugar Altar, was born out of a collaboration with musician Jesse Colin Roff while both were in a Minneapolis rehab facility. Much of the album, lyrically and musically, sounds informed by Deal's heroin experiences. Songs like the self-effacing "How About Hero" and "Canyon" are anthems to dysfunction, and Deal's brand of eccentric pop bounces between Velvets nod music and Brian Wilson at his most unbalanced. Still, Kelley gets across an easy humor and playfulness that makes Go to the Sugar Altar an even more likeable--if less solid--work than her previous recording appearance, on the Breeders' 1993 breakthrough Last Splash. When, and if, the Deal sisters ever record together again (rumors have circulated both ways), their newfound equal footing as songwriters and bandleaders should activate real Wondertwin power. And if it never happens, we'll be content to double our pleasure hearing the women soar along their separate trajectories. --Roni Sarig

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars From the Crypt to the Altar, May 16, 1999

By A Customer

When one completes a period of rehabilitation, a bizarre paradox is left. Either start again or continue where you left off. For Kelley Deal encountered this problem after leaving a drying out clinic in 1995. Her answer was "Go to the Sugar Altar", in which she took a third way, combining the old and the new. An interesting and innovative, if at times tiresome and irritating, approach. "Nice" is the track that stands out most, even if not the best achieved. It verges on the harmonic to the unlistenable as Deal's vocal scratches through the reverberated microphone. Nothing is quite as shocking as this track although the divesity in variety offered here can at times feel quite disorientating. The pure pop of "How About Hero", the funk of "Sugar", to the blues of the apt closer "Mr Goodnight" all show that this half of the Deal family is not totally about the late Eighties Boston rock sound which characterise her sisters projects. However the formula does exist in "Canyon", "Dammit", "Head of the Cult" and "A Hundred Tires". The best achieved song, which is not bettered by along way here, is "Trixie Delicious". Only on this track do the Kelley Deal 6000 achieve what they show promise of everywhere else. An album full of "Trixie Delicious"'s may be more repetative, but would have provided a more substantial end result.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Playful, pensive or mourning, Kelley Deal is a star in her own right..., December 17, 2005

By	jon sieruga (Redlands, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Go to the Sugar Altar (Audio CD)

This debut for Breeder Kelley Deal's sideband is full of wicked riffs, canny writing, beautifully reedy, husky vocals, and pop-rock hooks that show a playfulness of spirit and yet don't lean completely to a commercially-driven musical side. This CD is pure 1996, in all its alt-rock glory, sounding much like The Breeders at their best. "Canyon" kicks it off with wonderful percussion, "How About Hero" is wonderfully rambunctious, and the rocking "Dammit" (soft...soft, then LOUD) is affecting and amusing at once. My favorite track is the just-under-two-minute "Tick Tock", which has a catchy, fuzzed-out bubblegum flavor wrung through distorted guitars and vocals. In other words, it's glorious.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good stuff from Breeders alum, February 20, 2009

By	Kevin Schmidt (Rolling Prairie, IN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Go to the Sugar Altar (Audio CD)

I bought this for my sister but I really enjoyed it before I handed it over. Just as good as your favorite Breeders tracks. If you like Last Splash, check it out.