Search - Pond :: Pond

Shoegazer's paradise

Art | california | 06/16/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"this is truly a great record, especially if you like guitar bands! the 45 single from this release (young splendor/ tree) got major rotation on my turn table. if you like this and it's new to you, you might also want to check out polvo, or swervedriver, or sebadoh, blah, blah, blah"

Where Portland rock got its start in the SubPop era

John L Murphy | Los Angeles | 07/09/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The album starts off well with the fittingly titled "Young Splendor," but then drags. The fourth song, though, I haven't forgotten since I first heard this cd in 1993. "Agatha" has a nagging riff, haunted vocals about a boy haunted by the title character, and a very catchy hook. Almost epic despite its four-minutes, the guitar experimentation (continued in Campbell's 2003 one-off, one-man project "Goldcard") recalls Eastern modes.



While "Rock Collection," album #3 and Pond's final one, is probably their best, for the early Portland scene, emerging as Seattle boomed, this documents a trio eager to take on their many audible influences and begin to shape them into an individual sound. It's not quite gelled on this sometimes derivative, if clever for knowing from whom to "borrow," first album, but the exuberance of its best moments shows what later records and projects (bassist Brady's Audio Learning Center) would solidify. The Portland axis of 90s rock is often overlooked compared to you-know-where, but it's worth hearing on this, its genesis."