Nation of Ulysses
Plays Pretty For Baby
Play Plays Pretty For Baby
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MOG Editorial Review
Nearly two decades after its release, Nation of Ulysses' Plays Pretty for Baby still feels urgent, in-your-face, and like a breath of fresh air. Bred in the DC hardcore scene, they sounded like nothing that came before or after it, loud and snarling and self-aware to the point that you couldn't distinguish serious political views from tongue-in-cheek ones on anthemic tracks like "N-Sub Ulysses" or "Last Train to Cool." Often, the songs on Plays Pretty for Baby sound like a call to arms not only for the band's leftist causes, but a challenge for you to care passionately and intelligently about things, and the fact that they did it with some massive guitar riffs and shouted vocals certainly helped get that message across.
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AMG Review of Plays Pretty for Baby
Blake Butler
All Music GuideThis is genius. This is a revolution, of both thought and sound. The Nation of Ulysses is unmatchable by any band ever; they have created a dialectic, a movement, and a youthful assault of the mind and senses. Like Greek to a Caucasian child, most will never understand even partially the spirit that lurks in these movements for it is about something higher than mere music. There is something that moves beyond the lingoes of "The Aspirin Kid" Ian Svenonious, the complicated scriptures that fill the liner notes, the infamous reputations of insane and overwhelming live performance. A warped hybrid synthesis of trashy garage rock, spastic jazz, and creative freedoms. Languages created and swallowed amidst the words and discordant melodies. Full of fervor, anger, wit, and remorse. Solid spastic percussion, swirling distorted guitars, droning bass, and swollen horns. Rambling exploding vocals spitting words of animosity and love, of rebellion and unity, of awakening and medicine. The Nation of Ulysses must prevail.







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