Some things are unfairly dependent on the vagaries of mood as informed by time and place. It's not Caustic Resin's fault that I do not happen now to be sitting in a hazy, beer-soaked college dorm room circa 1992-- they have no control over that-- but, frankly, that is the climate in which The After Birth would flourish. My present moment-- being spent in a quiet room in an unassuming, Scandanavian-dominated suburb of Seattle, circa 2000-- is rocky, fallow ground where The After Birth can find no purchase. The air is clear, there is no wet towel stuffed into the crack under the door, and the only thing in the immediate vicinity which even remotely resembles a bong is an Ikea table lamp. The past has been left far, far behind.

Not that this album is clichéd or simple. And it's not that it's textbook grunge or only suited to stoned, post-cafeteria get-togethers. It's just that the time's not quite right for The After Birth. The zeitgeist has modulated just a little-- just enough to make the album seem a bit off. The Screaming Trees posters have been taken down and we've all started preferring to sit in chairs rather than on the floor. We've begun to take the importance of housekeeping and punctuality seriously. It's not that we've grown up... well, maybe it is that we've grown up.

This album could have received pretty heavy rotation had it crossed time and space and found itself in Farrand Hall in 1992. The opening Live Rust-ish instrumental would have gotten people nodding their heads and saying, "Yeah." The rest of the album would keep them interested in a friendly but slightly impersonal way: maybe inspiring comments like, "Hey, skip ahead to number seven!" or "I like it when the guitar does that jenka-jenka-jenk thing there."

But when it's over, nothing much remains of The After Birth, other than a feeling of uncertain nostalgia. It's like fondly remembering a night on which you're positive you had a great time, but can't at all remember what happened. The album's sound is just as blurry: is it Wayne Coyne fronting a Grateful Dead cover band, or is it Jerry Garcia and Crazy Horse? Does anybody know what this song is about? Or even what it's called? Where did all the Captain Morgan's go? Who wants a pizza?

But again, it's not Caustic Resin's fault. They just wrote some rock songs, went into the studio and played their instruments as well as they could, and offered the results in good faith. I honestly hope there are some guys out there somewhere with a hackysack, no shirts, and the need for some tune-age who could give this album the warm welcome it seeks.

-Zach Hooker