REVIEW: Eleventh Dream Day - New Moodio

If you (like me) are a longtime Eleventh Dream Day fan, you're aware of their winning combination of VU-inspired vocals and often pitch-perfect Crazy Horse guitar freakouts. To me, their sound was one of the highlights of the Louisville and Chicago indie rock scenes. What you may not know is that their 1993 album El Moodio is not actually the album the band originally intended it to be, nor is it the album they recorded and mastered on their own with Brad Wood at Idful Studios in Chicago. In fact, the one released was a re-recording of most of the original album, with at least three songs left out of the final sequence. So, the band has been inspired to go back and release the original with the three songs back in their proper place... and have christened this beast New Moodio.

From the label - because they kindly put this beast together, let's let them tell the story:

So what do we have on this LP? Three songs ("Thinking Out Loud," "Where is My Saint," "Everywhere Down Here") have never appeared anywhere previously, one ("Dakota"), found its way onto the compilation "Milk For Pussy," "Sunflower" was re-recorded as an "El Moodio" cd single extra, and the rest were re-recorded in 1992 with Jim Rondinelli in New York for the "El Moodio" cd - never released on vinyl in the U.S.

"New Moodio" is Eleventh Dream Day's "lost record," a parallel world version of "El Moodio." It is also the snapshot of a band at its peak. Recorded and mixed in just a few days, there is an urgency and excitement that courses through these songs played by a band empowered by freedom and possibility.

Here's the galloping "Thinking Out Loud" - pure joy as the guitars slowly build to a crescendo, starting about 2:00 in:



Just fantastic - for me the highlight is "Rubberband" - but it's all fantastic, including Janet Bean's lead vocal on  "Making Like A Rug". Read to learn more, or just order it (a must if you like guitars) at Comedy Minus One. It's out just this week (May 14).