Review: The Breeders

If a record comes along in 2008 that’s better than Mountain Battles, well . . . then I guess I’ve got a new favorite record of 2008. And I’m not sure that I can take hearing something more wonderfully earth-shattering than this slab of brilliance.

Kim Deal is a musical genius, her sister Kelley is her God-given muse, and when they make noise together, you can always trust that the results are going to blow your mind. And that’s really all you need to know about the album when all is said and done. The Breeders consistently deliver records that are so disjointed that they somehow hand out a new sort of perfection to strive for in rock music.

And while, yes, if you just drop the needle on Mountain Battles with no point of reference, I can understand why you might think that the platter was slapdash and uneven. You also couldn’t be blamed for thinking that about any prior Kim Deal effort, either. I’d be lying if I said that I have ever immediately understood - or even totally liked - anything she’s had a hand in on the first spin. But you’ve got to keep in mind that the Deal sisters don’t rush anything. Hardcore Breeders fans endure long and excruciating periods between records that seem like inactive downtime, though she’s really just taking the time to make the most perfect and refined album possible. People often like to point to the fact that there was a nine-year break between 1993’s Last Splash and 2002’s masterfully dark Title TK, but they also forget to mention that the results were gobstoppingly arranged and produced on the lowest of the lo-fi antique equipment, ensuring that Kim got on tape the exact sounds she’d been hearing in her head. I wonder if those folks that complain about the long wait between Breeders albums would’ve preferred that the Deal gals crapped out a half-baked album full of almost good ideas every year instead of rewarding the more patient fans with brilliant and challenging records when they were absolutely ready to be heard.

And while we’re on the subject, let’s talk about that nine-year hiatus I spoke of above: It’s not as if the main Breeders weren’t doing things in the meantime. Not only did Kim deliver the great Breeders-album-that-never-was under a moniker of The Amps - and frankly, it’s pretty much a Breeders album, despite the absence of Kelley Deal . . . which we’ll get to in a bit - but Kelley Deal gave us two albums with her solo band that often sounded like marginally good Breeders outtakes, and original bassist Josephine Wiggs made an exceptional solo album that encapsulated so much of the dark mystery found in the earlier Breeders
albums that one has to wonder exactly how much of the sound of Pod, Safari, Last Splash and the oft-forgotten Head To Toe EP was actually the influence of Ms. Wiggs. I mean, hell, she’s got more writing credits on those albums and their respective b-sides than Kelley at this point. Just sayin’.

That’s why I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up the following: the only constant Breeders member has been Kim Deal. Most of us conveniently forget that Kelley Deal didn’t even know how to play the guitar when the critically lauded Pod was unleashed on an unsuspecting world. She came around when Tanya Donnely was on the cusp of leaving for greener, more Belly-esque pastures. If we follow the Breeders model given to us, then any album or project with Kim Deal at the helm as leader and songwriter should be treated as a Breeders album. If you don’t believe me, don’t forget that the current band of Breeders routinely plays no less than three of the thirteen Amps songs in existence at nearly every concert. Plus, The Amps found plenty of time in their short existence as a Kim Deal “solo project” (that still saw fit to retain then-Breeders drummer Jim Macpherson) to play many choice Breeders cuts in even the shortest of their thankless opening slots. Including “Head To Toe”, written by one Josephine Wiggs. Ahem.

Now that I’ve gotten that off of my chest, I should probably tell you why I feel that Mountain Battles is such an end-all be-all record, huh? Well, for starters, this album turns a new leaf in Kim Deal’s creativity. For the first time ever, she’s reportedly plunged into the world of overdubs, whereas she’s known for being a “wait until the band can play it together as a unit and record it that way” kind of gal. The reason that I find this so remarkable is because the results still sound exactly like a Breeders
album. She’s given in just a teensy bit to studio trickery to shave a year or so off of our waits between albums. Fine by me.

But you’ve also got to take into account the fact that while her usual lyrics can often feel like she filled out a form of mad libs and later put music behind it, this time Kim is wayyy more direct than usual. The opening track “Overglazed” consists of just one easy-to-digest line repeated in various forms like a piecemeal mantra: “I can feel it”. And what can she feel? Judging by the lyrical scope of the rest of the album, it would seem like hints of hope in a bleak world full of reasons to never want to get out of bed. Let’s face it, folks, these aren’t the best years that Western civilization has ever seen, and to explain why or fix it would take more time than most of us will be alive. On Mountain Battles, Kim Deal seems to take on the voice of the world, alternating between hopeful lyrics sung in either English, Spanish or a shaky grasp on a German dialect. And it’s never preachy, either. In the slow and churning “We’re Gonna Rise”, she gently alludes to smallish things that one can look forward to. “Feel the light on my face”, indeed.

Elsewhere on the album, you’ll find the band stripping back to the acoustic guitar/sisterly harmony on the classic country of “Here No More”, the complicated sparseness of the bewildering title track, the best song the Blow never wrote in “Bang On”, and the obvious influence of Kim’s tenure in those Pixies reunion tours with the no-frills rock of “Walk It Off”. But the genius of Mountain Battles doesn’t lie in anything I can verbalize to you in one silly record review. It’s the general feeling that the album conjures up that so perfectly captures the moods, attitudes and issues of living in 2008. Of course, this is masterfully pulled off while somehow sounding neither dated nor like an eventual period piece. The disc is its very own monster, and it takes more listens than even I’ve had to really get inside of it. At every turn, it defies expectations while still delivering on all the promise of an album six years in the making.

So how does it hold up as a Breeders album? Well, everything you love about the band is front and center. The wonderful vocal interplay between Kim and Kelley, the rock solid drumming, the fuzzed-out and uncompressed guitar tones, and arrangements so wonderfully cut-up that even Brian Eno would be jealous. All the traditional Breeders hallmarks are here, but somehow this time they seem to add up to a more important whole. Mountain Battles is the sound of our modern times. And if that fact makes you uncomfortable, then you are the kind of person that needs to hear this album more than even the most seasoned Breeders fanatic.

Ready for the kicker? Mountain Battles isn’t even the best record in the Breeders catalog. But it’s the best and most relevant album I’ve heard so far this year, and that’s enough for me.

- Marc