To an outside observer, I might appear to have no grounds on which to judge, but I've always felt a powerful disdain for heavy marijuana smokers, especially of the neo-hippie variety. I find the idea of obsessive reverence for the perceived cultural revolutions of the late 1960s repellant, probably more so because it's usually coupled with an obsessive reverence to only the most visible musical monoliths of that era, while ignoring the most valuable. The kind of people that have literally no reference points outside of The White Album and Dark Side of the Moon.

Maybe it's just because it's on Bong Load Records, or because there's a song about loaded brownies, or even because these guys are renowned pot smokers, but this album just reeks of weed to me. The lazy, torpid way in which the players interact, the laid-back tempos, and the careless harmonizing all bear the mark of the devil's weed.

Adding to this feeling is the lack of coherency to the proceedings. The band is capable of interesting moments, such as the Tom Waits-esque tape constructions of "Prelude," "Outerlude," and the album's title track. The pleasant instrumental "Interlude" even features some nice whale-call feedback. Elsewhere, however, the band has a fairly straight-on rootsy, folky sound (which is a long way from actual roots or folk music) which is fairly hit-and-miss. "Frank" and "Brownies" have a certain rustic charm to them. The bands' lyrics range from the surreal on the former ("Every mile we drove/ He looked ten years older/ It was too late/ He had aged a hundred years") to the amusing, on the latter, which describes the positively life-changing effects of a woman's unwitting encounter with marijuana. When the sound gels, the hooks are strong and the haphazard performances only increase the appeal. But for a good portion of the time, the results are musically banal and lyrically weak, such as on "Tag It Up" and "Starting All Over."

I'll be the first to admit the positive effects of casual drug use. But the problem is, as one's ardor towards one's drug of choice increases, so too does the dangerous attitude that it makes everything better. Who among us hasn't been convinced that every word they said or every note they played was absolutely brilliant when stoned off their ass? And who hasn't been ashamed of the garbled mess when the results were recalled the next day? In other words, these guys have their good points, but I think they could stand to lay off the weed.

-D. Erik Kempke