Red Red Meat- Bunny Gets Paid [Deluxe]

The first Chicago band to sign to Sub Pop, Red Red Meat spent much of the early nineties touring with some of the most popular bands around. Yet somehow it never quite worked out. Although they never formally split up (and therefore have never had the acclaim/paycheck so often given to split up/ reformed bands of their time) it has been some time since the band were a going concern. These days frontman Tim Rutili spends his time working on his Califone project (which all of the members of Red Red Meat have contributed to at some stage), while drummer Brian Deck makes a living engineering for the likes of Modest Mouse and Iron & Wine. Bunny Gets Paid was the high point, and almost 15 years later their lo-fi blues is as pretty as the day it was born.The album opens with the gently lilting 'Carpet of Horses'. Amplifiers hum as gentle Blues licks are teased from a broken sounding guitar while a world weary Ritili croons, half asleep, half awake. As part of the "Deluxe" repackaging an alternate version of 'Carpet...' is produced, eschewing the electronic hoodoo hum and reverb and presenting the song in a more direct version, lush organs, drums and all. To a Red Red Meat newcomer either version is a winner, but only the original album version succeeds in drawing the listener into the fuzzy, bummed-out world they inhabit.'Chain Chain Chain' and 'Rosewood, Wax, Voltz and Glitter' turn on, tune down and drop out, all slacker rock vocals and coated in a layer of dust and fuzz that obscures the vocals without turning everything to sludge. The latter has a sense of chaos to it, with the sounds of bottles smashing in the background and periods of guitar mangling to boot. This upbeat stride doesn’t last too long though, and 'Buttered' returns to the battered acoustic blues that will be familiar to Califone fans. Discordant strings scrape and feedback hums, layering around Ritili’s broken voice, lethargic but beautiful.The album continues in much the same way, shrouded in production murk and swinging from blissed out euphoria to broken desolation. 'Taxidermy Blues in Reverse' brings forth a hard hitting riff, but soon returns to the slowed down, on the edge of a breakdown swing that dominates the record. Closer 'Tomorrow is Not Far Away' takes a track from an animated film about Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and renders it as a bittersweet blues song, gently lillting along damaged and fragile, propelling the listener away from the murky world which Red Red Meat inhabit.Other than a few reworkings of key album tracks, the bonus disc features a series of unexpected covers. Most interesting of all is their rock-ist interpretation of Low’s 'Words', which predates Sparhawk and co’s direction on The Great Destroyer by some 10 years. Fans of that album, and Sparhawk’s Retribution Gospel Choir would do well to investigate this record. While the bonus tracks are, for the most part, interesting rather than essential, it is good to have Bunny Gets Paid back in general circulation. 78%Red Red Meat on Myspace