Drive Like Jehu Albums

Drive Like Jehu was Rick Froberg’s band after the short-lived Pitchfork disbanded, continuing his brand of hardcore punk music with elements of symphonic glory and odd time signatures. The songs are not sang, they are expelled form Rick Froberg’s vocal chords. Helped by John ’Speedo’ Reis from Rocket From the Crypt, who followed a similar trajectory though his band was more rooted in classic rock elements. To listen to Drive Like Yehu’s two early 90s records can be a disjointing experience to say the least, there elements of rock music that drummer Mark Trombino and bassist Mike Kennedy have to get exactly right too, so a lot of it also has elements of progressive rock in it. DLJ may not be an easy listen per se, but it is music carved in blood in order to make a difference. Both albums are great but most people agree Yank Crime (1994) is the absolute masterpiece.

1991

Drive Like Yehu – 87%

Listening to the first DLJ album is basically Hardcore punk with progressive rock elements. Some songs are more like classical suites than rock songs, the first song of side two “If It Kills You” being a particularly effective one, at over seven minutes long it serves as a sort of trying experience in how long some one can yell at the top of their lungs. Opener “Caress” plays this off brilliantly, being an attack on all of our sense, sight, touch, hearing, taste – all at once. “Future of Stucco Monstrosity” and “Atom Jack” are other amazing, blast-you-from-your-chair punk rock frenzies. Toi show that the band is about more things, the nearly ten minute “O Pencil Sharp” is a lot of things all at once: a timid guitar opener lingers for longer than expected, before the guitars start pounding with their metallic attack and Froberg starts yelling about how sharp pencils are. It’s a little scary….but too brainy by the rapid paced ending to be very terrifying.

That’s the thing that is hard to pin down about the group, they are not but into any box simply and to knowledgeable to be any one genre convention. “Step On Chameleon” has dual vocals with Speedo taking on lead vocals for the first time, and its more angular and jagged than most of the Rocket from The Crypt songs are; this song serves as a particular example of what “emo” music of the 90’s and the future would sound like, though it also shifts structures multiple times form what would be a normal song structure. Only a couple of tracks pale in comparison to these minor masterworks, “Good Luck IN Jail” is a bit too aimless and “Turn It Off” may be not thought out enough channeling Sonic Youth a bit too much (though Trombino’s drums are excellent as always). Still, Everything in Froberg’s arsenal is precise, as there is little room for improvisation. Other strong influences on this album are the hardcore punk ensembles form Washington D.C., Bad Brains and Fugazi especially. It’s a truly visceral album.

Best Songs: O Pencil Sharp, Atom Jack, Future of Stucco Monstrosity

1994

Yank Crime - 95%

I have lived a lot with this album, since my early 20’s and I can say that I adore every second of it. The mix of intensity and complexity is not quite like anything I have ever heard before. The fabulous four-person band led by Froberg’s songwriting takes everything form the first record and prove guitar-based music still has relevance in the mid-1990s. Opener “Here Come Rome Plows” does not joke around, it sounds like huge battering rams being slammed into your ears. Still the song has endless tangents, multiple variations on a song that only the most astute classical musician could take apart. Then, as if to say ‘where does a band like this go from here’ we are followed up by the much slower paced “Do You Compute” with an opener that uses guitar as some sort of echo location, a map to guide us around the Milky Way, and as smooth as silk comes in that bass line before Froberg can scream his classic line “Do you Compute/ do you or don’t you/ I think you do.” The dueling in the outro between Reis and Froberg is something few rock bands ever match, sort of a nod to Television, Sonic Youth, and Rolling Stones all at the same time (continued on other songs on the album).

“Golden Brown” is the shortest blast of energy, but one of the most poignant. The guitars constantly descend downward, the singing constantly finds a way to gets twisted around itself. Then at the end of side one comes ”Luau”, one of the greatest rock songs of all time and Drive Like Yehu’s crowning achievement. It’s nine and a half minutes long but doesn’t feel like it; it feels like about 30 minutes and I mean that a as compliment. The guitars sound like they are being dragged across the ground during the verse, then picked up by interstellar travelers during the chorus. But don’t be fooled by the beginning of the song, there is yet another chorus screamed after it is done citing the songs name and back n forth of “ALOHA-SUIT UP-LUAU LUAU LUAU LUAU”- im not sure its correct spoken English but man is it effective from the emotional angle. The ending of the song is hard to describe in words, controlled chaos at one point for sure but before that Reis’s guitar glows with radioactive power at one point repeating an octave spanning guitar slide over and over again before erupting with emotional presence rarely heard in any form of music.

The songs on the album improve upon the debut by having a higher average length of song, the next shortest song is “New Intro” and for an intro its still over three minutes. It may be a weak track if standing on its own, but placed right in the middle of the record it is the brief respite we need (though still the least ‘musical’ number). Especially with the next track being “New Math”, a song with a time signature so warped its awe inspiring to hear every time- just how does the band remember to play it the same way twice? “Super Unison”, the second-best song on the album but no less important than “Luau”, coined the guitar chug for a generation of 1990’s independents, a variation of Creedence Clearwater Revival for sure, filtered though the best of 1980’s hardcore heavy rock. The guitars bend and break strings, but everything keeps going caught up in the emotional tidal wave of the singer. It slows down for some truly great melody to seep through in the middle, then builds to a simple chord, repeated over and over and until we have no choice but to submit (about the 5:30 minute mark); then of course its not over there, yet another emotional symphonic ending using guitars/ bass/ drums together.

“Human Interest” is a bit slower, but no less disjointed and full of power, while “Sinews” is the epic closer that may take time to truly sink in but it’s the only way the album could possibly end, the peak of raw emotion and so honest and gut-wrenching I’m not sure anything could follow it. After Yank Crime, how could anyone follow this album up? The band spent everything they had in crafting this, maybe everything a human being could scream out into the universe. The playing could never be duplicated, the performances tear out your soul, and somehow the music was so memorable it opened my ears on what could be possible withing the realm of rock music going forward.

Best Songs: Luau, Super Unison, Do You Compute, New Math