Huffamoose showed a lot of growth on its second album,
We've Been Had Again. But when the Philadelphia band recorded this self-titled debut album in 1993, it still had some growing and developing to do. That's not to say that
Huffamoose is a bad album; although uneven and less focused than
We've Been Had Again, it's still an intriguing, generally decent debut -- and one can hear the Philadelphians' potential on cryptic, reflective, mildly jazzy offerings like "I Wanna Buy You a Ring," "Mary," and "Delusion." The strongest and most memorable song on the CD, however, is "James," which also found its way to
We've Been Had Again. Obviously,
Huffamoose wasn't going for immediacy -- you have to listen to this album several times before you can really absorb it and render an informed verdict. Despite its shortcomings,
Huffamoose had enough going for it to make listeners want to keep an eye on the band and see what it would come up with on subsequent releases.