Finding cool things I've never heard of is cool, but sometimes finding cool things I've never heard of but I feel like I
should have heard of is sometimes even cooler. VITAMADE rose from the remnants of FLIES ON FIRE existed for one single and one full length (a CD release with a cassette promo, because this was the '90s) and as a standalone document it's a perfect document of the in-between eras. You can hear these sounds mingling with SUPERCHUNK, DRIVIN 'N CRYIN', MUDHONEY, DIDJITS, DRIVE LIKE JEHU and the like/s, but then you learn that the band formed from the ashes of FLIES ON FIRE - a would-be Sunset Strip band who came a few years too late and got ignored by their label (possibly because they were boring as fukk). Think about it like that and you can hear the "Rape Me" energy in "Self Inflicted" and maybe contextualize the furiously frustrated blast beats in "Golden Boy" a little differently (everything about this song deserves further analysis, by the way). Overthinking this recording would be easy and I find myself asking a lot of questions.....then I stop, take a breath and recognize that "Smug" is what would the world would be if FOO FIGHTERS had written a genuinely great song instead of thirty years of effective commercial ear worms and appreciate the accomplishment a twenty minute full length packed with genuine bangers. I'll never know if the transformation was organic or calculated (
Everything You Need didn't come out until 1996, when the butt rock ---> grunge/commercial alt transition was more than complete), but the aforementioned tracks along with "Better Of Playing Dead," "Glad You Made It" and "Forgive Me" and legit. The context and the questions just makes it easier for me to write some words, but a world where "Last Believer" was never a radio hit* is a world I don't want to live in.
