Artist bio

When they first started strangling their guitars in the early ‘90s, the Archers of Loaf were a direct if slightly more dissonant descendent of the prominent indie rock bands of the time, especially Pavement and their Chapel Hill, NC neighbors Superchunk. Their 1993 debut full-length Icky Mettle and the early singles collected on the 1996 compilation The Speed of Cattle reveal better-than-average songwriting skills and melodies that manage to overcome the peculiarities of Eric Bachmann’s hoarse singing and Bachmann and Eric Johnson’s demented guitar stylings, most prominently the mixtape hit “Web in Front.” The 1994 EP Archers of Loaf vs. The Greatest of All Time cut out some of the amateurism of the debut and added a whole lot of lovely guitar abuse, including the classic “Audiowhore.”

None of the early releases quite prepares listeners for the smorgasbord of sounds on the Archers’ sophomore outing, 1995’s Vee Vee. Produced by Bob Weston, the record was a vast sonic improvement from the debut and cannily employed samples and vocal effects. Mostly, though, Vee Vee just brought the goods with great songs, particularly the college radio hit “Harnessed in Slums.” Over Matt Price’s thundering toms and bassist Matt Gentling’s deranged backing screams, Bachmann makes like an indie rock Moses, speaking out for the “thugs and scum and punks and freaks” whom the band is proud to call their fans.

Then, oddly, they went for the brass ring. 1996’s All the Nations Airports, though nominally released by the Archers’ longtime label Alias, was their first to be major-distributed and was accompanied by big-budget videos and an actual promotional campaign. The album itself was a logical progression from Vee Vee, mellower and containing a few Bachmann piano ballads and even a country-western instrumental. Still, tunes like “Strangled by the Stereo Wire” and “Vocal Shrapnel” bought the choking feedback fans expected. Modern rock radio unsurprisingly did not respond to the subtle pleasures of “Scenic Pastures,” and the Archers’ major label era was over after one album. One benefit of the experiment was the limited release of the Vitus Tinnitus EP, which included thundering live versions of some of the band’s greatest compositions to that point.

White Trash Heroes, released in 1998, was a breakup record and sounds like it. Bringing over some of the ideas he’d picked up with his quasi-orchestral side project Barry Black, Bachmann layers budget keyboards over most of the songs, with the remainder being hellish screaming. The Archers had come about as far from “Web in Front” as could be imagined. Nonetheless, the album works quite well, particularly the spooky “Dead Red Eyes” and the final track which gives the album its name. Eric Johnson didn’t make many of the dates for the tour to support White Trash Heroes, and by tour’s end it was common knowledge that it was the end of the line for the Archers of Loaf. Bachmann moved on to do something completely different with his new band Crooked Fingers while Gentling toured as an extra guitarist for Superchunk. The live document Seconds Before the Accident was their last release.

Albums by this artist

White Trash Heroes (1998)

The Speed Of Cattle (1996)

All the Nations Airports (1996)

Vee Vee (1995)

Icky Mettle (1993)

Archers of Loaf

All the Nations Airports

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» MARK T.R. DONOHUE | STAFF WRITER

Archers of Loaf All the Nations Airports Alias, 1996 RiYL: Seam, Sonic Youth, Pavement

The beginning of All The Nations Airports, to all intents and purposes Archers Of Loaf's major label debut, makes Elektra look crazy. "Strangled By The Stereo Wire" and particularly the atonal string-scraping of the title track are about as uncommercial as AoL get, not that past a "Web In Front" here and a "Harnessed In Slums" there they were ever exactly hitmakers. The incredibly strong middle section of the album, however, reveals more to the story.

Through the glorious long fadeout of "Scenic Pastures," the scrappy Pavement one-upper "Vocal Shrapnel" and the affable "Worst Defense," the continuously mixed All The Nations shows off an Archers at the height of their powers. They're at once casting a wider net musically than ever before and focused into making everything flow together into an album that's almost a suite. Bachmann's singing has improved by leaps and bounds, as demonstrated on the lovely reverb ballad "Rental Sting" and "Chumming The Ocean," easily the most emotionally affecting song ever written about being eaten by a shark.

Lest you think they've forgotten their roots, there's also the whining loop "Assassination On -Xmas Eve" is built around and the thudding "Attack Of The Killer Bees," an "outro" for "Worst Defense" that is actually longer than that song. "Bones Of Her Hands" is a warped pop song on the level of any of Vee Vee's. If you want to get nitpicky it's true that a second piano song ("Bombs Away") isn't really necessary and the spaghetti western instrumental "Bumpo" would have been better suited to B-sidedom. However if not for this commitment to leaving nothing out of bounds, All The Nations Airports wouldn't be nearly the record that it is: Archers Of Loaf's best.

It's hard to tell whether it's a deliberate response to the major-label connection, but All The Nations' lyrics are the least concerned with Bachmann's favorite topic, the music business, among the Archers' four full-lengths. The major replacement seems to be death, as mentioned explicitly on "Strangled," "Assassination," and "Chumming" and suggested by the autumnal tone of much of the music elsewhere. White Trash Heroes is darker, however. Nations somehow sees the end of the band ahead and accepts it with maturity and grace. At the same time, tracks like "Chumming The Ocean" give Bachmann an escape valve to his post-Archers project Crooked Fingers.

Naturally, an album that's at once layered and mature and uncompromisingly noisy made not a commercial ripple. The Archers Of Loaf returned to the full embrace of Alias for one more record and then called it quits. This album ought to assure that their period of activity will not be forgotten.

MARK T.R. DONOHUE | Mark T.R. Donohue is a prolific freelance writer whose areas of expertise include Rockies baseball, video games, genre television, English soccer, and pub rock. He lives in Colorado, where he cultivates the largest and creepiest private collection of Alyson Hannigan memorabilia in the Mountain West.