Albums by this artist

I Am The Day Of Current Taste (1998)

Roadside Monument

I Am The Day Of Current Taste

---

» JONATHAN COHEN | SENIOR EDITOR

Roadside Monument I Am The Day Of Current Taste Tooth & Nail, 1998 RiYL: Shiner's Lula Divinia, Shellac's At Action Park, Slint's Spiderland

Seattle trio Roadside Monument called it quits well in advance of the release of I Am The Day Of Current Taste. But it's safe to say that Day, recorded in Seattle with ex-Jawbox frontman J. Robbins behind the boards, will continue to resonate as one of the most powerful and impressive independent albums released in the latter part of the '90s.

Its lineup having been solidified by constant touring and the release of a full album, a live bootleg and an EP, Roadside Monument here resemble a mythic missionary hell-bent on converting the musical masses, or at the very least delivering a thumping wake-up call to the ears. The band covers a staggering amount of musical territory on this album, and nowhere more astoundingly than the title track.

Shellac-ed guitars roar out of the gate confrontationally, as Doug Lorig sizes up the subject: "you look nervous, boy." A whispered mid-section quickly returns the listener to the gripping jam from the song's beginning before morphing into a jagged, head-banging riff o-rama. "OJ Simpson House Auction" is next, brilliantly updating the urgent post-punk of Shudder To Think's 1992 gem Get Your Goat. Clean, melodic guitar chords and a soaring verse ("why can't it be my way?") crash full speed into a dark breakdown where each instrument has its turn to move to the forefront.

Lorig's vocals are a more prominent element of songs such as "Cops Are My Best Customers," a ditty that initially recalls post-punkers Chavez or Shiner before totally derailing into a heavy metal frenzy replete with a saxophone and a robotic guitar effect accomplished by attacking the fret without strumming.

I Am the Day of Current Taste will go down as a remarkable last hurrah from a criminally underrated band.

JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"