When they recorded their debut album
The Days of Wine and Roses,
the Dream Syndicate hadn't even been together for a year. They went into the studio less than a month after forming and escaped with a noisy EP that documented their early, ragged sound. Now they had a deal with a record label and a producer,
Chris D., who knew his way around a mixing board and was ready to make an LP that would help define an era, and live on as one of the most important albums of its time. Mixing the grungy grind of
Crazy Horse at their bleakest, the barely tamed energy of
the Velvet Underground at their wildest, and the abrasive glare of
Dylan in his prime, the band unleashed a sound that was fueled by youth, confidence, and an unquenchable desire to make the kind of record that they wanted to hear but nobody else was making. Add to this heady mixture the dual guitar acrobatics of
Steve Wynn and
Karl Precoda, the steady rhythm section of bassist
Kendra Smith and drummer
Dennis Duck (that was always there when the guitarists got too near to tumbling over the edge), and
Wynn's sneering, snarling, and unhinged vocals and the band had everything they needed to vault this record into the realm of brilliance. Not a singular kind of brilliance: They reveal many sides and shades as they run through the songs like there's a glittering prize awaiting them at the end. Recorded mostly live and with broken headphones that forced the guitarists to guess what the other guy was doing, they rock out like dervishes on tracks like "Definitely Clean," chime spookily then explode into shattered glass on "That's What She Always Says," strut and swoon drunkenly on "Until Lately," and on the title track, show off a kind of daring, untethered psychedelic jamming that would make
Quicksilver Messenger Service green with envy. Toss in a cranky, overloaded pop song ("Tell Me When It's Over"), a chilling track with some wonderfully cracked guitar soloing ("Halloween"), a heartbreak ballad sung sweetly by
Smith ("Too Little, Too Late"), and it's perfect. Everything works like it was crafted out of trippy, malevolent stardust -- from
Wynn's hard-bitten lyrics to
Precoda's massively sludgy guitar tone that was so gruesome it earned the nickname "the Thing" -- and the album makes good on the promise of all the influential but flawed bands and LPs that had come before and influenced them. For just a moment they tapped into the molten core of rock music and were able to concoct something that had all the danger, beauty, energy, and fire that people talk about and are rarely able to achieve. [
Fire Records celebrated the 40th anniversary of the album's release with an epic set that pulled together most of the tracks that had been on two previous reissues while adding a treasure trove of tracks rescued from
Dennis Duck's voluminous tape archive. The
Down There EP is here, as are both sides of the "15 Minutes" single and a handful of rehearsal takes that were found on the 2015
Omnivore reissue. That's all well and good, but the album goes further, with live recordings that show the band in full flight with
Wynn barking out the lyrics, the guitars scraping paint off the walls -- sometimes gloriously out of tune, sometime seemingly playing a different song entirely -- and the bass and drums placidly keeping the madness grounded. The sound quality isn't always the best, but for fans this material is pure sonic catnip that provides endless amounts of joyful discovery. Pro-tip for the true fanatics: rip all the discs, then resequence the set so multiple versions of the same song play in a row. It's a fascinating way to hear how the songs evolved and there's so much variety from version to version that it never gets old. Or just listen to it as intended. Either way,
History Kinda Pales When It and You Are Aligned: The Days of Wine and Roses - 40th Anniversary Edition is a 100-percent vital set for fans and those who want to explore a perfect record even further.] ~ Tim Sendra
