Neutral Milk Hotel – On Avery Island
On Avery Island is a rare and welcome opportunity to explore their raw brilliance, pre-Anne Frank
Neutral Milk Hotel were, and thanks to this series of reissues, are, the ultimate indie band. Leading lights of the fertile mid-to-late nineties breeding ground of Athens, Georgia that spawned the Elephant 6 collective (Apples In Stereo; Olivia Tremor Control), Neutral Milk were the brainchild of Jeff Magnum: a man whose seamless flirtations with actual and fantastical and whose subsequent descent into recluse-dom invites inevitable comparisons with a certain Syd Barrett. Legendary status was bestowed on the band in the years after the monumental In the Aeroplane Over the Sea album in 1998, one of the finest indie rock albums ever recorded. The question of how they would follow Aeroplane up will never be answered. Magnum has since withdrawn from the public eye and Neutral Milk have not recorded again. On Avery Island then, recorded two years earlier, is a rare and welcome opportunity to explore their raw brilliance, pre-Anne Frank.
Despite debut status, On Avery Island is destined to be the second NMH record most people will hear. Cast expectation aside though, and in some ways it's a perfect introduction to the band. It fumbles along in the organised chaos that would come to characterise their sound: the potentially awkward arrangement of ugly lyrical content and largely ariose guitars / soaring vocals is done frivolously - even joyously. Magnum has never shirked away from difficult subject matter and broaches it in a manner not dissimilar to Daniel Johnson – childlike and with a precocious imagination.
Flippant references to suicide are anchored to an exultant brass section on opening track Song Against Sex ('Find a nice cliff to drop off / Oh when this world just gets so grating'). Death is matter of factly dealt with on You've Passed ('As her spirit is climbing through the hospital wall and away') and there's a throwaway account of interaction with the opposite sex on Naomi ('I'm tasting Naomi's perfume / It tastes like shit I must say'). The songs are insular, even autistic. Post-Aeroplane, anti-social and hermetic were accusations angled at Magnum so frequently, they became too easy. On Avery Island proves that the traits always existed, it just took the trappings of potential fame for them to force him back into his shell.
Sonically this is a lo-fi, self-contained album, less epic and grand than its successor but one that also acts as a reliable blueprint for what was to come. Among the de rigueur acoustic fuzz and horn bursts are some more avant garde instrumental outros and tracks (Someone Is Waiting and Machine Theme) which, whilst not making an overwhelming contribution to the overall composition, certainly darken the overall tone. There are occasions when Neutral Milk's most powerful instrument, Magnum's voice, is frustratingly contained and begging to be unleashed. At times he seems to be performing within himself, high praise indeed given that the vocals here are striking if not startling.
'I swear I have nothing to prove!' Magnum unconvincingly asserts on Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone. Ten years from the release of their Magnum Opus, these words sound less hollow. He has nothing left to prove to anyone, least of all himself. Throughout On Avery Island though, his demons seem to rest within rather than with the world at large. Is it as good as Aeroplane? No. But this reissue offers a fascinating 'how it all began'-type insight into Magnum and the music of Neutral Milk Hotel and should be an essential purchase for any fans of the band's later work.