BOB DINNERS AND LARRY NOODLES PRESENT TUBBY TURDNER'S CELEBRITY AVALANCHE

Between 1988's Worned By Leonard and 1996's I Hope it Lands, TFUL282 were quite productive, putting out about an album a year. Though they never put out a bad record, I had been somewhat disappointed by Lands, and when the band failed to put anything else out for the next few years I sadly accepted that maybe they'd hit their wall and moved on. So I was pleasantly surprised when this bizarrely titled album appeared out of nowhere in 2001, and exceeded my expectations, even considering their usual high level of quality.

As a quick introduction for those unfamiliar with this band, they were a five-piece band from the 1990s that seemed a part of the "indie" or "college rock" scene, but were so original and avant-garde oriented that they really didn't sit well in anyone's company, save maybe extreme weirdos like the Sun City Girls (with whom they occasionally toured). Still, they're essentially a rock band, and if you like guitars you're in for a treat, because they have three of them, acting independently but together, creating strange interlocking riffs and dissonant chords that they somehow turn into hooks. They also tended to play a lot of additional random instruments like violins and trumpets and stuff. They all composed together, probably just sitting in a room together and saying, "let's see what it sounds like if we do this".

Back to the album at hand. It's pretty amazing, in that they managed to combine the virtues of their two best albums (Mother of All Saints and Strangers from the Universe) into a single album: the mad whimsy of the former paired with the clear recording and detailed arrangements of the latter. In fact, the first three songs, "Another Clip", "Sno Cone", and "Holy Ghost" are as gripping and complex as anything they've ever done. If the album had kept up this level of invention, it could have easily been their best album. All three are highly melodic, yet incorporate abrupt changes in mood and tempo, and make the most of the three guitars, squeezing several different sounds apiece out of them, crafting complex 3-6 minute progressive mini-epics. Unfortunately, the remainder of the album never quite hits those heights again, although there aren't any true duds on here either. "Everything's Impossible" is a delicate piece with chiming guitars and piano and gentle drum rolls. "You in a Movie" has interesting bits but suffers from repetition, "In the Stars I Can Sizzle Like a Battery" is nearly undone by an annoying vocal effect, but is a cool (albeit in a weird way) song apart from that. "El Cerrito" fleshes out a decent song first presented on Mother of All Saints. The album finishes strong with "The Barker", a multifaceted rocker like the opening cuts, and "He Keeps Himself Fed", a sludgy river of harmonized guitar fuzz, a pretty new guitar effect for them (also heard briefly in "You in a Movie"), before giving way to a lengthy, quiet closing section ending the album on a mysterious note.

Unfortunately, this ended up being their final album, but it ends their career on a high note. Not consistent across the board, but very well recorded, and featuring some of their strongest material. Avant rock fans who haven't heard them should give them a try, and this album wouldn't be a bad place to start - then move backwards.