Truly
- Fast Stories... From Kid Coma By vlad
Inevitably, people are going to focus on the fact that Truly includes former
members of Soundgarden and Screaming Trees (bassist Hiro Yamamoto and drummer
Mark Pickerel, respectively), and yes, you hear traces of those bands and several
of their slightly more famous peers on this album-- but there's a hell of a
lot more to this band than an alumni society. Four years in the making, Fast
Stories is not an easy album and Truly is not an easy band to pin down.
The references are fairly obvious (the above as well as Zeppelin, the Doors
and late-60's psychedelia)., but never dominate the band's sound; they combine
elements of their influences rather than using them all at once. The droning,
low-end riffs bear Hiro's signature, and vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Robert
Roth's melodies and expansive instrumental work have all the hallmarks of a
serious obsession with early-'70s excess. Balancing all of that is Pickerel's
strong and steady drumming, with holds the sound together where a less tasteful
drummer would have driven the band into complete overkill (and with 13 songs
sprawling over 72 minutes, this album is excessive enough). Fast Stories
is often heavy but never bludgeoning, and Roth's soft voice (not worlds away
from the Tree's Mark Lanegan's) tempers the band's rougher edges. An album that
sounds like it could have been made twenty or five years ago as well as today,
Fast Stories is an extended trip into several worlds of rock, and it's
one of the most intriguing debuts of this fairly young year.
(CMJ New Music Monthly, June 1995)
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