Watercress - Pirates on the Vitamin Seas (2000?)

After years of rumor and dead-ends, I finally found this long-lost, unreleased album by one of Ireland's finest bands. Leah managed them toured them in North America a few times, and tuned me (and everyone in our office) on to what I still feel was the consistently best live band I ever saw. Fun, energetic, quirky, and inventive, they came and went way too fast, with only a cassette-only (!) album, a full-length CD (Bummer, their only really proper release), and several EPs to show for it.

And this, their follow-up to Bummer, which was recorded but never released.  And it's obvious why.  This is much more conventional and subdued than their previous recordings and live performances; it still has a high musical IQ, but ultimately it's just not that interesting.  It's a snapshot of a band that was just moving in a different direction, a competent but sad period at the end of the sentence.  You expect a scream; what you get is a whimper.

But they had their moment.  I hope you saw them when they were around.

CD Placement Rating:  CD Rack?  Say it ain't so, but really it's more like Sell-back 1.  Ugh.

- Snilch