Picking up where their Signal to Snow Ratio EP left off,
Grandaddy's wittily named second album
The Sophtware Slump upgrades the group's wry, country-tinged rock with electronic flourishes that run through the album like fiber-optic lines. Arpeggiated keyboards sparkle on "Hewlett's Daughter" and "The Crystal Lake," and wind, birds, and transmissions hover around the songs' peripheries, suggesting a Silicone Valley landscape.
Jason Lytle's frail, poignant vocals provide a bittersweet counterpoint to the chugging guitars and shiny electronics that envelop him like a cockpit or a cubicle on "Chartsengrafs" and "Broken Household Appliance National Forest" and set the tone for melancholy ballads like "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot," "Miner at the Dial-a-View," and "Jed the Humanoid," the story of a forgotten, alcoholic android. Lost pilots, robots, miners, and programmers try to find their way on
The Sophtware Slump, an album that shares a spacy sadness with
Sparklehorse's
Good Morning Spider and
Radiohead's
OK Computer. Though it's a little more self-conscious and not quite as accomplished as either of those albums, it is
Grandaddy's most impressive work yet and one of 2000's first worthwhile releases. ~ Heather Phares