I've narrowed down the list of possible factors that might have motivated Nebula to embrace their particularly incongruous guitar-rawk style on To the Center to two:

1) One afternoon, the trio decided to bring the van over to bandleader Eddie Glass' parents' house to "score some grub," and while pilfering the cupboards, elected to turn on the television. For the sake of novelty they opted to watch cartoons, and before long there was a commercial break. Thus, the saga began. It was a commercial for some fairly innocuous breakfast product, such as Eggo Waffles or Apple Jacks, which aimed to prove that their product was, in fact, "extreme." This was accomplished by showing a 13-year-old soccer kid wearing ripped denim and a backwards baseball cap playing air guitar to squealing rock music that advertising executives believe to be the hippest thing humanly possible. The product flew around the screen provocatively to this quasi-grunge backdrop as various uncool figures such as teachers wearing horn-rimmed glasses and bewildered traffic cops cast disapproving scowls at the child, undoubtedly named Billy. All three future Nebula members were stunned. "Dude! We need to sound like that!" they gushed in unison. And it was so.

2) They think that it's 1992. This way the plodding, sweat-stained lump of testosterone that is To the Center would actually be right with the times. Tie-dye, plaid flannel shirts, bandannas and general dirtiness were seeing surges in popularity which would vault Nebula to the high echelons of the then-coveted Sup Pop roster. They could frolic in their crunchy psychedelic soundscapes, giving their songs hallucinatory titles such as "Synthetic Dream" and "Fields of Psilocybin" and be called cutting edge. It was a wonderful time for lumbering psychedelic rock.

But last time I checked, it was at least 1997. Consequently, Nebula's thrashing power chord- drenched To the Center is a striking anachronism. Each song can be summed up like so: a big, dumb riff, fuzzily distorted, which sticks to no more than four chords which are usually chromatically linked; shrieked or shouted vocals about a mystical distant galaxy or standard "C'mon, baby, you know what I need" sexual fixation; and screeching, meandering guitar solos casually interspersed in between. Judging from the live photos in the liner notes, Nebula shows are not the behemoth you would want to mess with unless you derive a considerable amount of joy from being assaulted by trite psychedelic metal or from reeking of patchouli.

The caveat to this harangue is that Nebula can execute thumping hallucinogen-enhanced rock as well as anyone. Admittedly, this is about as good as saying that Yanni plays the best New Age at the Acropolis of anyone, but the boys in Nebula at least know how to do what it is they're doing. Unfortunately, what it is they're doing has been done before several times. If I were in the mood for hulking, cumbersome power chords and mushroom-laden vocal ramblings, I suppose To the Center would be as good as anything from the genre. Thankfully, I have yet to experience that particular mood.

-Taylor M. Clark