Sebadoh: III : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

In the indie-rock world of the nineties, Sebadoh were far less consistent than bands like Pavement or Yo La Tengo, but at their best they were almost as great. This reissue of the Northampton, Massachusetts, trio's first good record comes with a bonus disc of hit-and-miss songs recorded around the same time as Sebadoh III, including the entire Gimme Indie Rock! EP (dig the great title track). The 1991 album itself is a freewheeling smattering of sloppy rock, low-fi junk, acoustic change-ups and killer noise tunes. There's the shout-along hardcore rip "God Told Me," a Minutemen cover and frontman Lou Barlow's classic "The Freed Pig," a supercatchy dis to his Dinosaur Jr bandmate J Mascis. At forty-one cuts, this III is over stuffed but lovable – and hopefully a predecessor to reissues of Sebadoh’s even better mid-Nineties albums.