Emergency & I

Took a few years to get into this LP, but the payoff was more than worth the wait. Hard to identify any other 90s band that can top the ageless idiosyncrasy and post-punk perfection of Dismemberment Plan – this LP sounds fresh to this day, partly for how sonically distinct and off-kilter it is. There's a perfect blend of early grunge/noise rock and angular post-punk guitar here that blends together seamlessly thanks to the band's chaotic, spastic delivery. Tracks pivot on a dime from soft and reflective to completely discordant, a bipolar slant that makes the album feel alive and unpredictable. I still find new corners to get lost in every time I run through this LP, just one of those albums that continues to give nearly three decades on. Great add, felt DP was a huge blind spot for the official 1001 alongside Hum and other 90s' noise rock greats.

If if read the reviews (by users and critics) Emergency & I by indie rock band Dismemberment Plan is one of the best albums of the 1990s. I totally missed it, but I don't support the hype. It's a nice album with sometimes weak vocals, but good ideas. "A Life of Possibilities", "What Do You Want Me to Say?", "You Are Invited" and "The City" are great songs and several others are ok too, but nothing exceptional. Still a meager four stars though.

This album sounds surprisingly fresh thirty years later, which is rarer than it should be. The Dismemberment Plan sit somewhere between math rock, Fugazi, and indie pop, and they make that combination entirely their own. What impresses most is that these are Musicians with a capital M, but every technical decision is in service of the songs rather than the performance. The rhythms are irregular, the arrangements restless and creative, and none of it ever shows off. It just makes the songs better. The lyrics carry a great deal of wisdom that a twenty-something could identify with, which is possibly why the album holds up where so many of its contemporaries don't. The emotional range is remarkable too, moving between anxiety, alienation, playfulness and vulnerability. One caveat: The voice is an acquired taste and occasionally grating. The fact that the album still lands this well despite that says everything about the strength of what surrounds it. An album I'll be returning to. And an actual contender for the original list.

Classic. Love it. One of those albums where I always come out of a listen with a new favorite song. It's chaotic, but in the right way. Last.fm says it's one of my most listened to albums of all time, so I'd be lying to myself if I rated it anything but a 5/5.

This sounds indie, all right

It's not what I expected- seemingly disjointed and random but engaging. It's ODD and I mean that in a good way. Certainly not derivative or drab. It's interesting to see what direction they are going track by track.

Ooh, new band for me, but definitely in the genres I like. I may come back to this one, but was pretty good for my first listen.

Interesting and kind of curvy musical ride. I liked it.

Classic

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: A life of possibilities, What do you want me to say, I love a magician

A missing link between 90s and 00s indie alt rock

Well it’s cute and short I guess. I like whenever a lead singer has kind of a unique voice. Overall unremarkable but not off putting

Not as violent as their name makes them sound. There was something I enjoyed here, but the fact that I can't remember what it was means that it can't have been that enjoyable.

I think I need to hear this again before making a proper review. I didn't dislike it, but this is very much a holding response until I've finished the list and/or get bored and revisit stuff I've said I need to revisit.

Clearly there is foundational stuff in indie rock going on here given its release date. This does suffer from that problem.of, in coming to this band late, there is a strong and likely unfair sense of been there, done that. I enjoyed it, but while maybe innovative in its time I'm not sure it's quite great.

I definitely listened but I can’t have heard it. No idea other than I can’t have hated it.

Best Song: What Do You Want Me to Say? One of the few songs in the album that felt like it had an internal direction. Worst Song: 8 1/2 Minutes. Songs from the dentists office. Overall: This was too scattered for my liking. It reminded me of a less cohesive Mars Volta. Everything felt very chaotic, and obviously this chaos was intentional, but for whatever this particular instantiation of chaos was frustrating to me. I never felt like I had any place to get my bearings, it was all confronting noise without direction.