Big Head Todd and the Monsters
Sister Sweetly (Giant)
by Marc Hirsh
Big Head Todd and the Monsters
Sister Sweetly (Giant)
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in the Rice Thresher, November 5, 1993
Sister Sweetly, the latest album by Colorado band Big Head Todd and the Monsters and their first major-label release, is one of the most boring albums to come out in a long time. It's not good, but it's not bad enough to offend. It's just there, sitting in your CD player or tape deck, playing along on its merry way until you tell it to stop.
It shouldn't be like this. Todd and the Monsters have developed a large following in their native Boulder and in other cities they've graced with their presence, such as Chicago, Austin and Minneapolis, where they recorded Sister, at Prince's (or Victor, or whatever the Hell he calls him/her/itself these days) Paisley Park Studios. They've been praised far and wide as one of the highlights of this past summer's H.O.R.D.E. tour, which featured such bands as Allgood, Soul Hat, and Blues Traveler. The entire state of Colorado seems to love these guys. But then, there's not much to do in the mountains.
What Big Toddhead and the 'sters do is a tepid mix of rock, funk and blues. Lead Monster Todd Park Mohr writes and sings the songs, playing guitar over the rhythm section of bassist Rob Squires and drummer Brian Nevin, who sing backup.
Problem is, despite all of the press Mohr has gotten for being a charismatic leader, the album shows absolutely no sign of such claims. Mohr's voice is just plain plain. Actually, everything about him seems to be adequate. He writes songs that say nothing but sound kind of pleasant augmented by decent guitar playing and alright vocals and so-so production. It's as if the entire album is a lesson in mediocrity.
At the root of the problem is the songwriting. Without a powerful voice to command attention, the focus switches to the songs. While many non-singers have been able to sustain careers in the music business, it seems unlikely that Neil Young or Bob Dylan would be given a second glance if they were incapable of writing great music.
Now, Mohr's voice isn't as bad as that, but neither are his songs that good. He's content with finding a riff or groove and repeating it throughout the song. The problem is that rarely are they worth repeating once, let alone for 4+ minutes. Thus, "Sister Sweetly" boasts a wah-wah guitar that adds little beyond rhythm to the song. The riff in "Turn The Light Out" is repeated sixteen times each verse, with no audible variation to keep the listener interested. When Mohr stretches out to solo, the result is standard blues-rock: full of cliches and unoriginal.
Lyrically, Mohr has little new to offer. Most of the songs deal with the perilous topic of Love Gone Wrong. "Morning light fills the room. I rise. She pretends she's sleeping. Are we everything we wanted? And I'm thinking love," chants Mohr in "Bittersweet," and such sentiments are repeated throughout the album in songs such as "Turn The Light Out" and "Tomorrow Never Comes."
Elsewhere, Mohr pretends to be a bluesier, more psychedelic George Clinton in "Groove Thing" but, instead of clever wordplay, is reduced to bizarre proclamations like, "What is the color of the soul? Said Buddha, Jesus, Plato, and the Poets of Old, That evening is the color of soul," over a funk groove that never quite takes off. "Circle" attempts to evaluate Big Topics but only delivers unoriginal lines like, "Rise and fall, turn the wheel, 'cause all life is, is really just a circle," as if it's the first time we've heard such sentiments.
Supposedly, Todd Of The Large Skull and the Monsters are a crankin' live band, but there's no indication of this on Sister. Perhaps the limited setup of a live setting makes the music more up-front and edgier. It'd have to be, because with the band's penchant for extended jamming, what seems to be an inoffensive album's worth of songs might otherwise turn ugly.