Rodan’s Rustyis one of the best of the 90s. I’d say it was one of my favorites and it is but I like a lot of music. This one is a true classic. Everything about it is of the era. The octave chords, the Bob Weston production, the found image & scribble aesthetic. This is what the early 90s were about. The good stuff.

Dug this record out when I heard Jason Noble was sick. I didn’t think too much about it tho, beyond, “wow, medical bills, that sucks”. Cause he was still pretty young to actually die from cancer. Not the case. He would have been 41 today. And I didn’t know him or anything, but it’s impossible to not feel some kind of way about that.

I didn’t really know his other bands either. I mean I know Rachel’s and The Shipping News but I don’t have those records. They were not a big deal to me like Rodan, or just this record really, since that’s all there is, except for some 7-inches and whatnot. But this is one of those bands that kind of loom in my mind…I don’t even know what they look like, forget any chance of having seen them live. Like a lot of these type bands I seemed to hear about them just as they were breaking up. I feel like I’m a couple years younger than I should be if that makes any sense. But enough about me. AV Club has a proper obit.

But Noble was not the sole contributor to the group. Jeff Mueller, later of June of 44 brings a lot of the drama. Without him I think it would be much more straight ahead post-rock, which was not quite established then but I think you get the idea. From the almost orchestral opener Silver Bible Corner to the almost hardcore Shiner you get introduced to these two dichotomies, which then fight it out and at times resolve throughout the album.

This is most emo record I own. They might not get put under that tag, they are more compared to Slint and math-rock. Slint is not emo to me, they’re too arty for that. Rodan takes the Slint blueprint and brings a more direct emotional honesty to it. When Brian McMahan of Slint gets all shouty, he’s playacting the character of this weird story he’s telling. I don’t think those guys have been literally shipwrecked on a weird island or whatever.

I can’t believe there’s only 6 songs on this thing. I guess I’ve always taken it as whole. The long songs seem like shorter songs stitched together, giving the effect of later “songs” referring back to earlier ones in the album. The Pixies get credit for creating the extreme loud/soft dynamics in indie rock but this takes it much further. The catchiest song on this record clocks in at almost 12 minutes: The Everyday World of Bodies.

Oh man, that is the stuff. The strongest vocal hooks on this album are the mantra-like verses with Tara Jane O’Neil, “everything changes, everything changes”, then the two loud choruses, “COME ON COME ON COME” and “I WILL BE THERE I SWEAR”. Just damn. I dunno, too much for some people. I think I was ruined after this. Nothing else like this sounded as good. Plus the girl in the band helps a lot. Most emo bands are like four dudes broing down over one guy’s breakup, I could never get that. I’m generalizing, but I’m just saying. I think this transcends in a way the other stuff does not. It goes beyond coping mechanism/bonding ritual with music into…art? Art.

So it sucks to have to talk about about the record in this context, but you can still help benefit Noble’s family by buying the tribute album (which I’m not going to review, just buy it) and/or a shirt from Shirtkiller. %