专辑简介

OPTION #44. May/June, 1992

HEDGEHOG "YOUHAPPYFACE" CD

The first full album from this Santa Cruz trio offers some of the most musical rage I've ever heard. They admit to jazz and hardcore influences -- I hear some Sabbath riffs, too -- which means they can actually play fast and furiously, instead of play at playing fast and furiously. Generally, this band functions as a three-man rhythm section, and as it shakes and breaks its way through these tunes, Hedgehog suggests the rhythmic intensity of bands like Firehose and Primus. If there's a weakness, it's in the way singer/guitarist Eddie Gregor fits his words around the ever-charging, ever-changing instrumental tracks; sometimes they work, but sometimes they're forced. Everything in the middle of this disc gels, though; the band really comes alive in the breaks of the songs "Pocketfull", "Utility Dig", and the instrumental "Nameless". The anger and sense of purpose the vocals stumble toward is right there in the instruments, and it comes through loud and clear. -Michael Davis