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Ted Leo looks ahead through his musical past

Jeffrey Jotz | Rahway, NJ USA | 07/05/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Ted Leo, known to legions (?) of fans as the angsty guitarist & vocalist of the now-defunct band Chisel, goes a bit experimental and discovers the fun of tape loops, samples, and just plain noise. Fans of Chisel's combo of pop-punk and mod may be turned off by this CD, which does not really highlight Leo's great lyrics & songwriting (although you'll still find it in a few tracks, especially "The Nice People Argument"), but rather, how he's been spending his days cooped up with the MIDI machines. In fact, the last track contains some humorous tape loops from Chisel dating from their infancy at the University of Notre Dame in the late 1980s. Leo has always exposed himself to almost every style of music imaginable, and his breadth of exposure really shines through here. This seems more like a Ted Leo retrospective on all the music that has influenced him over the years, and amidst all the noise and stuff, a few pop gems shine through. Would I put this CD on in the car for long trips? No. Leo forces you to listen closely to what * he * has to say, not what Chisel has to say."

The White Album

spunky | 01/30/2006

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This CD requires infinite patience to get through. What's unfortunate about it is it sounds like Leo won some studio time in a raffle drawing and didn't know how to spend it. Why not an endless tape loop of the sounds of Rice Krispies loosing their crisp, sped up to 78 rpm and fed into an 18 track processor, backwards? Awesome! Don't get me wrong, "Shake the Sheets" and the brilliant "Tyranny of Distance" certainly make up for this self indulgent stoner noise. But this is a tremendous skip even for the die hards."