THE SANE DAY

Impressive for a band so young (age-wise, too) to make their second record already a double album. Since, I believe, that their songwriting craft was not yet fully honed, there is a lot of filler. But it's basically anything goes approach for Beardfish who clearly wanted to put to use the many ideas popping up in their young minds. About half of songs can be described as pleasant psychedelic pop-rock, with bluesy influences, sense of humor and a keen knowledge of provincial American pop culture (learned probably thru Frank Zappa). Production here is clear and bright, but on later albums would get significantly grittier. The second disk unexpectedly ends with a series of quite progressive instrumental or almost-instrumentals. The band said King Crimson was a big influence, but I see here the Crimsons' more lighter side.

This record clearly shows a band with great potential, which they realized later on, but still I can't overlook the amount of filler here.