dan's jams - music reviews

Man. What a breath of fresh air this was. That about 500 of us got. Shiner's second album, Lula Divinia, snuck out in 1997 and served as the beginning of the pinnacle for this midwest band. In this incarnation still a three-piece, the power and complexity and emotional weight of this album bears down on the listener as a fully-composed freight train. Starting with "The Situationist" the album tracks in like some kind of lightweight indie noodling but by the end of the song the whole demeanor of the song has built and focused into a monolith. The single and video, "Christ Sized Shoes" mixes metaphors of relationships, Jesus, and podiatry in a way that sounds peculiar on paper, but a walk through the lyrics and a spin of the tune actually give this song immense weight.

There's not a song on this album that doesn't outright slay in terms of invention nor driving force. The way "Sideways" gives way to "Pinned". The way "Pinned" is in tune with the dial tone sample that runs through it. The monumental beauty of how "Cake" focuses into a monstrous riff by song's end (and a reason it was a live favorite). The speedy stagger of "Jim's Lament". The driving polyrhythm of the chorus of "My Life As A Housewife" that feels so unnaturally natural.

It's a sad tragedy that music this intelligent, this ground-breaking, can't seem to get a fair shake in the mainstream. Nearly every song on this album illicits greater emotions, grander dreams, wider melancholy...this album is mandatory. And if you don't get it right away, it's mandatory that you eventually do.