Well, I like'em all. What a band. One of the very best ever.

E pluribus and Daddy has a tail are a wonderful psychotic mess but suffer a bit from bad recording.

Things improve on Effete and the "Transitional" Peacetika is already a masterpiece me thinks. Then came Iain Burgess and that string of classics. Whorn is organic and Sorry in Pig Minor has some wonderful studio trickery.

My Top 3 as of August 2023:

1.Orphan's tragedy; pretty much a repetition on what they've done on previous three albums. No surprise factor. But they're so tight and full of confidence. I would understand though that back in the day it would've been just "more of the same" for a fan.

2.Peacetika. 26 minutes of Cows perfection.

3. Whorn. I think changing from Burgess to Tim Mac was a smart and refreshing change at the time. Not their best batch of songs but they sound MEAN.

Vibracobra wrote: Sun Aug 27, 2023 3:11 am E pluribus and Daddy has a tail are a wonderful psychotic mess but suffer a bit from bad recording.

A bit! They sound bad, IMO. Like, significantly worse than yr average demo of its day bad.

Not a band that has aged well for me, esp the early stuff, which I think is essentially amateurish. Agree things take a stronger turn on Peacetika but I don't like the songs on that or Cunning Stunts.

I think Sexy Pee Story gets everything sinister and perverse and imaginative all in one place. There's some great stuff on Orphan's Tragedy but it gets abrasive to point of being obnoxious over the course of the whole album.

Effete and Impudent Snobs

It's the noisiest, wackiest, migraine-rockiest album to my ears (by the by if anyone has the original recording of "Memorial" by Tucumcari Rattlers I'd sure love to hear it before I die). When I think of noise-rock this record immediately comes to mind, particularly the falling-down-the-stairs-drumming and geetar-screeching of "Preyed On." I also giggle at the flipped-on-its-head racism of "Whitey in the Woodpile." Cows proved how progressive and slyly intellectual they are by taking an old racist idiom - and title to film and song - substituting "whitey" for the original n-word, making an anti-racist noise-rock anthem. They are smarter than they let on.

I love every Cows record but always come back to EaIS. So gloriously noisy, messy, bluesy, and grooving in their odd way.

Cunning Stunts. I think it sounds great.

Effete... is the best to me; it has a perfect baöance between goofu noise and songs (tm).

I have no problem with the productipn on the first two; what bogs them down is the goofy "humour" on too many songs... the good stuff is great

I never fully understood the adoratipn for "Cunning stunts"; arrangements are too tight, songs too compact and I don't like the production with guitar overdubs all over the place not doing anything creative, just "filling out" the sound to make them more accessible in the post-Nevermind era. Great songs though but ot sounda too much of its time...

I will post my oåinions on their later albums tomorrow;

jakethesnake wrote: Sun Aug 27, 2023 6:18 pm I never fully understood the adoratipn for "Cunning stunts"; arrangements are too tight, songs too compact and I don't like the production with guitar overdubs all over the place not doing anything creative, just "filling out" the sound to make them more accessible in the post-Nevermind era. Great songs though but ot sounda too much of its time...

Cunning Stunts was my intro. Blind item buy. Fell for it hard; from its Reid Miles-ganked album packaging to the tightly-packed songs and well-constructed but still-messy noise. Shits good fer dancin', jumpin' around, and actin' a fool. And you've got to admit that "Heave Ho" is one of the best outbursts of an opener. EaIS is looser for sure, but Id argue that its songs are more fully formed than anything prior.

Christ, "Terrifique" is terrific. Miss this band.

Miss her beer, too.

I want to say Daddy Has A Tail, but it sounds like total shit. Another vote for Effete it is.

Crap.

Effete

It's horrible, but funny horrible. As a consequence, randomly yelling "Dirty Leg!" has just become "a thing" around the house over the years of owning that record.

Oh yeah, for the rest:

Orphans tragedy: I really like this album and it's the best produced of the Ian Burgess albums with more bass presence and fewer "heavy" (=pointless) guitar overdubs. The free-improvs jams are total timewasters though...

Whorn: while the live-in-the-studio approach might sound like a good iea, it wasn't for this album which had their most sophisticated music to this point while sounding like a demo completely with Sandris voice sounding strained, shut or out-of-tune on practically every track. I still like it though in spite of dull it sounds...

Sorry in pig minor: meh, never liked the 90s "texture-rock" sound on this one; sounds like King Buzzo took the worst aspects of Melvins "Stag" with him to this album; several great songs though-need to revisit but I'm not in A Cows zone right now (more in that late 90's hip-hop/neo-soul Soulquarians sound right this week; I'll be back!)