The contingent of clergymen, social workers, psychotherapists, and chronic shoulders-to-cry-on sprinkled throughout the Pitchfork readership will surely agree with me: confessions can be very embarrassing to witness, even more so when followed by a chaser of justification. Take, for example, the following soliloquy from Nuzzle vocalist Andrew Dalton:

"I don't read lyric sheets. They disturb my private understanding of a record, don't read very well on their own (even while the record is playing,) and often turn seemingly great lines into bad ones. This is why I didn't include words on the record. Notice we didn't include a bass tablature either, and the voice is certainly no more important than the bass, especially in this band. Ultimately, music is the effect had by the total sound, with the direct meaning of the words having little to do with the pure pleasure of the experience."

Candor, as you can plainly see, is very much overrated. While Dalton stops just shy of tossing in his Rorschach test readings and polygraph print-outs, he reveals a good deal more than he probably should have. The paragraph alludes to obvious insecurities about his own lyrics, or conceivably, a complete lack thereof. Indeed, why bother even writing lyrics when unintelligible vocals leave so much room for the listener to make up their own? But Andy doesn't lie; in this band, no one element is any more important than any other. With the possible exception the sure-footed drumming, each is equally insipid, and none is any less forgettable than any other.

Junk of Myth is a monotonous, "Dad, are we there yet"-length ride through the early years of Nuzzle. It combines their Follow for Now LP, their three seven-inches, and other previously unreleased songs into one convenient buffet. The band, from behind the rosiest rose-colored glasses you ever saw, describe their sound as "landing somewhere between Unwound and early REM." Had they given themselves any bigger a pat on the back they'd be pricing shoulder surgery.

The early REM thread is pure distilled fantasy; the Unwound comparison is closer, but not quite there. Fuzzy guitar cacophony, tom-heavy drumming, and incomprehensible vocals (by the way, I filled in the most spectacular lyrics!) fail to elicit more than grimaces and taps of the "skip" button, even with the occasional quiet interludes. And when Nuzzle does come through, every now and infrequent then, with their propulsive, almost pretty moments, the songs are utterly devoid of the inimitable, keenly off-kilter musicality of Unwound or, for that matter, the scrappy pop sensibility of early REM.

The only notable moments that come to mind (we'll leave the Ewok sample out of it) are two occasions where the band departs from their bad Unwound mimicry to try their hand at equally bad Nirvana or Sonic Youth impressions. But more than any other, the album's best moment was the tell-tale zzzwip sound informing me that the CD had run its course. While anyone who composes music and puts it out for dissection is due some respect, the nicest thing I can really say is that Nuzzle's early work is inoffensive, unoriginal, and thoroughly inessential. Oh yeah, and grungy.

-Camilo Arturo Leslie