Woolly Mammoth
Fabric
Hepcat/Scrimshaw, 1997

Reviewed by Troy Carpenter

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Woolly Mammoth, Fabric's first and only album, saw its release only a couple months after the band decided to break up. And in the tradition of the Velvet Underground and Biggie Smalls, the band's greatest success came on the heels of its demise.

Woolly Mammoth shows how far Bloomington, Indiana, natives Fabric had gone to develop their style after two years of playing together. Guitarist Chris Kupersmith, bassist Tina Barbieri and keyboardist/percussionist Scott Ewing, retiring to a log cabin in Kentucky, turned into an off-kilter pop powerhouse aided by tinny piano, strange organ melodies and video game bleeps.

Kupersmith's voice, endearing in its scratchiness, roots the band's sound as it stretches its boundaries. Unconventional singing patterns weave in and out of the simple yet twisted melodies. Fabric often juxtaposes poppy and carefree hooks with spaced-out middle sections and defiant endings. "Inside a Bowling Pin" has four distinct parts and sounds as if it might have been recorded where its title suggests.

Rocking openers "Deaf Baby" and "Rubberman" create a better one-two punch than one could hear on any U.S. radio station in 1997. While "Security" and "Shame and Pearl" are jaunty piano-based numbers more likely to be found in the era of Frank Sinatra than that of Kurt Cobain, "Man I Bred A Snake" is a scary psychedelic melange supposedly recorded during a hailstorm. Then the pensive "Georgia Rest Stop" sets its airy scene with elegance: Southern dawn on a long road trip. The album's diversity is one of its strong points.

But Fabric's crowning achievement with Woolly Mammoth is the originality of the whole project. With so many bands bleeding into the background of "alternative rock,'' here's one that doesn't imitate or contrive its sound. Fabric does what Nirvana and Radiohead have done -- what most mainstream acts fail miserably at -- creating music rooted deeply in its influences, yet branching out toward uncharted territory.

"Behind each pop melody and memorable chorus lies the traces of Fabric's anguish and torment."

Eric Weddle
- NATN Contributor

 

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