Tad
Infrared Riding Hood

THE REVIEW

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One mid-December 2020 afternoon, I took a stroll downtown, early Christmas crowds in covid times, masks and people everywhere. It starts to rain heavily, and I don't have an umbrella. I'm almost in front of OVS and think I'll take refuge there long enough for the downpour to pass. I head to the men's section and start eyeing something, maybe I'll come back when the sales are on. At a certain point, I notice two guys putting on a funny little show: they're more or less my age, one short and bald, the other tall, chubby, and graying. The bald guy wants to convince his friend to get a flannel shirt and has him try on a red-black checkered one. The friend looks in the mirror, but doesn't seem very convinced. "Oh God, I look like Santa Claus!" he exclaims horrified, to which the friend replies, "No, you look great!" "Ugh, it highlights my belly,"... At that point, I walk away, chuckling, and take out my old iPod, search, and find "8 Way-Santa," and I let myself be lulled by another rush, this time of feedback...

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One of the most iconic images of the glorious Sub Pop era we remember well: Tad Doyle in a wet white t-shirt, displaying all the lard and hair on his chest, and the word LOSER dominating, wonderfully summarizing the aesthetic of a decade of indie rock. Then we all know how it ended, Nirvana found the right wave and rode it, making it strong, and the losers of yesteryear found themselves with respectable bank accounts. Not Tad, who, despite being among the first to play that mix of hard/metal/punk for which someone found a happy and soon overused label ("grunge"), soon found themselves in the background, unable to keep up with the heavyweights who made Seattle one of the rock capitals of the stars and stripes. On the other hand, how could MTV play videos of chunky Doyle dressed in a flannel shirt and wielding a chainsaw, like a crazed lumberjack around Twin Peaks? These bumpkins who even dared to mock Pepsi!

So Tad struggles along after missing the right train in the early '90s, and we reach 1995 when they release "Infrared Riding Hood", still for a major label, which, having exhausted the contract, will drop them without much ceremony, given the lackluster sales: after all, the big audience is now loyal to those 4-5 historic names of the genre, and a new wave, in the form of Bush/Silverchair, is looming, with bands faithfully replicating the Nirvana creed, armed with handsome leaders ready to set the hearts of the grunge girls aflutter (unlike Tad's belly!).

For the occasion, our heroes bring back Jack Endino as producer, who was behind the mixer for their historic debut "God's Balls". The formula is the same, although slightly softened compared to the past (those irritating edges a la Big Black have now disappeared): what remains is an exasperated cross between the monolithic sound of Black Sabbath and the accelerations of Black Flag: Kurt Danielson's bass constantly pumping out sulfurous beats, while the squared-off guitar geometries lead them to brush the edges of the era's alternative metal in the style of Helmet. Various tracks like "Bludge", "Bullhorn" and "Ictus" can easily compete for an ideal best of the band, which of course has never been released.

There are also melodic openings already glimpsed in their previous works, clearly inspired by Dinosaur Jr. (listen to "Red Eye Angel" and "Dementia" for this purpose), in tracks that with another band might have even broken into radio or MTV. However, their fate was already sealed, the league of cult bands awaited them; and the records of these lovable losers will always have a special place in our collection.