Gin Blossoms - Learning the Hard Way: Track Review
From now on I'm going to be doing track reviews as well as album reviews. It should be fun. Holler if you've got something you want me to check out and/or mock.
And what better group to start with than the Gin Blossoms, one of the greatest and most unfairly maligned groups of the 1990s. Their 1992 masterpiece New Miserable Experience is better than your favorite group's best album. Its 1996 follow-up Congratulations... I'm Sorry has its moments.
They broke up in 1997 a mere matter of days after winning an ASCAP songwriting award (see: going out on top) and have yet to release any new material until just now. Their new album, Major Lodge Victory, will be out August 8th on Hybrid Recordings, an indie label.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the level of talent involved, "Learning the Hard Way" picks up right where the last album fell off. Those ringing, Byrds-like guitars, Robin Wilson's sensitive white guy singing, that uber-medium tempo? All there. I could use Doug Hopkins on the lyrics, but he's been dead for 13 years.
All told, I'd put "Learning the Hard Way" right up there with the current material of any other band from that era. Think about it.
Stream "Learning the Hard Way" at the Gin Blossoms MySpace page.
