Buffalo Tom
Birdbrain

THE REVIEW

And who even remembered Buffalo Tom anymore... And who knows why they came back to mind...

In reality, I plugged the guitar back into the amp, after many months, and I was thinking about what I'm capable of playing. Very noisy tracks, with a vague Youngian descent, and with a strong melodic accent. Which is also what Buffalo Tom did, in an excellent manner, something I never managed to achieve with any of my lousy bands.

A trio of college friends from Boston, Massachusetts, formed towards the end of the '80s, Buffalo Tom churned out a handful of rather pleasant albums, to say the least. Among these, my favorite is this one, the second in their discography, produced, like the first, by J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr.. Indeed, many years later, and with a somewhat more objective mind, it's precisely Mascis's touch that makes them suffer the most (at some point they were nicknamed Dinosaur Jr. Jr., due to the similarity, and in fact, after this album, they decided to part ways with mister "Freak Scene"; the comparisons started to become too annoying).

Because then, beyond the convergences, Bill Janowitz's writing, the leader, as well as singer and guitarist, is of high caliber. From the initial "Birdbrain," which has one of the best alternative rock riffs of all the '90s, to ballads such as "Skeleton Key" or "Baby," it becomes clear that we are faced with a talent anything but negligible.

And indeed, I wore out this album at the time. Enamored of sweet melodies that collide with nocturnal distortions, energy in motion that implodes in quick saturations.

Admittedly, nothing new, if you consider what Sebadoh was doing in the same years, or a few years earlier Husker Du, just to remain in the trio realm. However, honest music, sincere and with attitude. And in today's lean times, a bit of nostalgia arises.

Having abandoned Mascis’s production, they followed with softer, more folk albums, at times almost Byrds-like ("Big Red Letter Day" is, strangely, reviewed in our area by sfascia), until in 1998 they disbanded. After some solo attempts by Bill Janowitz, they reunited and in 2007 released a new full-length called "Three Easy Pieces," not very highly inspired, but still listenable. If you don’t know them, I believe it's better to start from the beginning: you might discover a perhaps underrated band, but worthy of attention. And some of their songs, I'm sure, will win their way into your heart.