Letters To Cleo
Wholesale Meats And Fish

THE REVIEW

As you well know, there's a big black hole that mercilessly swallows up artists, trends, films that weren't fortunate enough to extend their 15 minutes of fame, or didn't get it at all: the oblivion. Very often it happens that (staying in the musical field) groups or artists who didn't deserve it end up there, and it's worth rediscovering them (and DeBaser, let me say, is a great site for retrieving!); other times, it’s characters who weren't worth saving that fall into oblivion: the so-called meteors. This category includes the band in question, Letters to Cleo.

Who remembers them? In America, they achieved moderate success around the mid-'90s with "Here and Now," from their debut album "Aurora Gory Alice," also featured in "Melrose Place" (those were the days!). After that, three other albums went increasingly unnoticed, an inevitable breakup in 2000, various avoidable solo careers (we'll only keep track of the singer Kay Hanley's career, consisting of 4 albums and various EPs) and a completely unnecessary reunion in 2008. But back to us: the subject in question is the band's second album dated 1995. Following the success of the mentioned "Here and Now," they release this second effort that shifts the sound towards a rock that’s even more pop than its predecessor, following the more commercial holes. It starts with "Demon Rock" and "Fast Way," truly enjoyable, the former with its fast punk-like pace and the latter with its more sustained rhythm: two good examples of what would later be called power pop, often inappropriately. The beginning looks promising: unfortunately, by the fourth track (and first single) "Awake", the level plummets: "Laudanum" is a whiny ballad for depressed thirteen-year-olds, "St. Peter," "Little Rosa" and the concluding "The Wuss Song" are pathetic in their banality and in wanting to be (the first two) forcibly rock: unfortunately for LTC it's not enough to have the usual distorted guitar similar to grunge to camouflage a pop broth not of the worst kind, mind you, but two steps higher to be honest.

And the worst hasn't been reached yet: as the penultimate song, in a sort of coup de grace, comes the horrendous "He's Got an Answer," a track that seems to come straight out of a boy scout choir from catechism, armed with a deadly mono-chord acoustic guitar. Help!

It must be said, however, that not everything should be thrown away from "Wholesale Meats and Fish". Besides "Demon Rock" and "Fast Way", it's worth saving from the muck the cheerful and acerbic "Acid Jed," complete with organ, and the fast and catchy "Pizza Cutter." Unfortunately, four nice songs aren't enough to save a group from oblivion, and it's best for Letters to Cleo to stay where they are: in the niche of more or less useful and more or less forgotten bands that Beavis and Butthead excellently commented on in their show (that's how I discovered them).

There’s much more to rediscover in the depths of the '90s!