Search - Volcano Suns :: All-Night Lotus Party

Even better than their debut

ifutureman | NJ | 01/28/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Volcano Suns' sound changed very little over the course of their career - even with several lineup changes along the way. But the production quality of the recordings improved significantly on this, their second album. Peter Prescott still runs the show from behind his drum kit, writing the bulk of the material and singing lead. His able cohort of Jon Williams and Jeff Weigand provide plenty of noisy support for Prescott's odd blend of hardcore energy and rootsy Americana.



All Night Lotus Party kicks off with "White Elephant," probably the closest this band ever got to a radio-friendly single. This band managed to kick up an enormous amount of a ruckus for just three guys, and they were never noiser than on this album "Blown Stack" and "Ride The Cog" are just two examples. But "Four Letters" reminds the listener that this band knew about melody and song structure too.



As with their first album, this reissue contains several excellent bonus tracks. I especially enjoy their live-in-the-studio rendition of "The Ballad Of Bilbo Baggins" which convincingly demonstrates the fact that for all their ability to rock and rock hard, these guys didn't take themselves too seriously - an attribute that makes this music as listenable today as it was more than 20 years ago.



And for sheer insanity, you really can't top the "dub" remix of "Walk Around." Kudos, Mr. Weston!"

Ack...taxes!

Jeffrey Weigand | 03/22/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Please don't buy this record...if you do, we might actually have to start filing tax forms..."

Shambling, good-natured, and sprawling indie-rock

John L Murphy | Los Angeles | 04/11/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The second LP, reissued with lots of bonus tracks, remastered by cohort Bob Weston, sounds great. The songs, less tightly wound than drummer Peter Prescott's Mission of Burma, amble and wander. This shambolic quality detracts from the intensity of MoB, but it may be more accessible for today's eclectic listeners. Like MoB, Volcano Suns prefer to pummel you. Unlike MoB, they kept a sense of humor!



This sounds as if, being a Boston band, frat party music-- if played at MIT or Harvard. Mercury rather than MoB's mica is sung about, but also the properties of dead-end burgs, yuppification, and lost love. The liner notes adapt the opening "Call Me Ishmael" from "Moby Dick" to express their New England heritage wittily. The generous amount of added tracks show the band's range in taste, if not sound. The songs do tend to run together, and it's more an album of a jittery, askew mood than a showcase of intricate melody and textured variety. The best track on the entire re-issue: The Amboy Dukes' "Journey to the Center of the Mind," but as its vocals are barely audible, it took me a while to identify that psychedelic classic's riff as the spine of the remake. The Beatles' "Polythene Pam" suffers by being merely bellowed, and this type of one-off, first-take delivery also lessens the impact of many of the original band's tunes here. I have to say the punky vocals, recalling for me Jello Biafra, don't wear as well as the sonic attitudes here.



The band tends to hit on superb guitar chords, as in the first two songs, "White Elephant" and "Cans," but these last only seconds before the songs go back to the churning, but dissolute, attitude that the album prefers. It's laid-back as much as it's direct, and the louder volume still makes the tracks feel improvised and as loose as those at a frat party. This shifting style, continued in Prescott's next band Kustomized, does link the Volcano Suns to the kinds of bands popular on Homestead Records in the early 80s, when a Midwestern, tuneful, yet humbler college indie rock continued post-punk into a combination with poppier tones and a more friendly appeal.



Still, any selection that features "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" among its offerings, along with a not-bad "Sounds Like Bucks" in both studio and live versions, and which ends with a long 2009-titled song that seems to consist of a storm re-enacted for fifteen minutes on tape does show the group's still eager to mix the experimental with the silly. Not many smart bands do so, and the blend of sly fun and restless energy that made Volcano Suns a leading example of what used to distinguish college rock for the post-punk generation should find many happy to find this, and its companion, the début (also reviewed by me) "Bright Orange Years," finally on CD."