pop will eat itself

It is refreshing to hear the LP judged out of the context of those of us that followed the band and bought stuff as it was released. However lovers of this LP will probably feel losing the context of it in relation to the bands back catalogue, the time it was made in and coming to the above conclusion about it rather undersells it or misreads it.

I think this was more a case of the band raising there game than running out of steam*. I was very of it's time and PWEI were one of the first bands to channel to frustration and anst of what would come to be 'marketed' as Millenium Fever. I guess without the distractions we have today - practically living as Avatars on the web and having even more channels of being bombarded with media and more avenues to consume, we maybe focused more on the doom and gloom. It's a lot worse now in every way as we hurtle towards a demise of our own making, but we all seem to shrug it off and carry on tweeting. Back then this seemed really relevant and chimed with the times.

Anyhow for me this is was a great way to go out. It's a PWEI classic. Everythings Cool was the perfect last single for the end of the world that never came.


* I imagine, whatever the band say, losing Graham was a real blow. I guess Clint was not ready to carry the full burden. His struggle to come up with anything post PWEI prior to PI and his depression is well documented. Or maybe the band just lost the spark and drive.

Definitely an interesting take, but I agree with payback about it being slightly out of context (which I guess is the point a bit). Dos Dedos did seem to divide the fan base a bit, not nearly as fun or "poppie' as the earlier stuff but it brought it a whole new fan base (especially here in the us). I remember being disappointed with the album originally, I always thought it was a good album but not a good PWEI album. But is has stood the test of time for me and now I view it as one of their best. I don't think the band was running out of steam (creatively at least) and had Graham not decided to leave the band when he did, I think the follow up to Dos Dedos would have been quite a commercial success at least. Again especially from my perspective in the US, the NIN connection had brought a lot of attention to PWEI and in the years to follow the Prodigy and Chemical Brothers had brief measure of US success that PWEI would have surpassed. Within the context of the mid 90s-millennium-doom the sound was very appropriate and I always wished we could have gotten to see where they would go next.

I love Dos Dedos. In context of their career the Poppies needed to move on and grow up a bit and they really went for it. And the follow up recordings, the 1996 stuff, are even heavier and more straight faced. The only downer was that the Clint and Graham songs seemed to become separate entities, with less involvement from either on the orher's tunes. But that's rock n roll.

really good review

here's mine

it's a bit pony!!

Best album of the 90's

Thanks a lot for the feedback! The doom atmosphere is not really the problem but simply the fact the record was less imaginative. It's still a damn good record though - I mentioned already how much I love Everything's Cool (It is actually a pretty perfect End-of-the-World-Prophet song), and I think that if PWEI continued they could have actually been the biggest band of that era. It was, after all, the age where Industrial Rock/Nu Metal/Rap Rock/Big Beat got big, and PWEI had all of it in once place.

I'm planning on reviewing all of PWEI's albums and you'll get that similar perspective, since I was born after the broke up. Should I post my reviews in this thread or make seperate ones?

Weird. Dos Dedos is possibly the finest pwei album going. Underbelly is one of my favourite pwei songs. I love the samples and the feel of the song. Everything's Cool is another great. RSVP and Kick to Kick are absolute stonkers (that means good) too.

The bleak outlook of the album is also of it's time. I had to look back but this is around the time that yugoslavia was breaking up and ethnic cleansing was very real (again). I guess an album with "everybody's happy" on it wouldn't have gone down so well. To me it was a sign of the times with a terminator feel. The far right were indeed getting votes in the UK. Didn't the BNP win in the isle of dogs around this time??

I think this album was a commentary on what was going on at the time. "This is this" was more about boys having fun and expressing their interests and observations. No way did this look like the end just a different subject and a more outward looking album. Trying not to sound like a wanker but you had to be there.