Lynx – self-titled?

Overall Rating: 5.2 (out of 10)         Label: SAM / AA

In a mood to listen to music and write about it, sorting through a mass of old CD’s, I eschewed the known and familiar – I wanted to hear something new. Found a little white CD in a plastic sleeve with no distinguishing marks. Pulled it out of the plastic and saw that the front was indented with “lynx” at the bottom. The back had similarly colorless, inkless indentations with three song titles: “nighthush,” “tisp for tuiton,” and “mrs. lynx,” along with recording and mixing credits and thanks. Copyright 1998, SAM 11 AA 38.5. Opening this cardstock revealed it was a single piece of paper, no additional protection for the CD (simply yellow with no printing), with hand numbering on the inside in pencil – a split-label release in an edition of 1000. Promising.

Noise dissolves to make way for angular guitars. Very post-slint. Reminiscent of Cheer-Accident. About to start rocking then fading to quiet, several times in a row. Several truly rocking moments interspersed with pretty guitar parts. Are they trying to bridge Shellac and Tortoise? They did want it titled “tips for tuition,” rather than it’s misspelled title, right? Or is misspelling two of the words intentional, to show how badly they need the education? Are these guys really pretentious, or really earnest? Listening to the music, it’s just as hard to tell as looking at the packaging. Is that a cello in the third song? And why are the 3 songs represented by only two tracks? Or is that third track just a second of silence or something? Is this amateur hour, and is that a bad thing? I think this might have been a fun live show to see, but repeated listens leave me nonplussed. The fake-out rock-out is a little tiresome, and while they actual moments of angular guitar jams can be really good, they’re not great. I wonder if these guys did anything else? I wonder what other stuff came out on these labels? This CD provokes lots of questions, but doesn’t give me the impetus to find the answers. Maybe I’ll do the research if/when I put it up on e-bay, to find some selling points. Now, back in the sleeve.