Crying Your Knife Away

AMG Review of Crying Your Knife Away

Jack Rabid
All Music Guide

The double-live LP, vinyl only (thus hard to find, but very worthy) live document -- which is not a bootleg, but a well-distributed, band-winked at semi-official release-finds these suddenly fashionable veterans drunk (causing quite a few flat notes from Pollard) and riotous/raucous at Columbus Ohio's Staches, 6/18/94. Like any GBV disc, one must skip a lot -- they have an indulgent capacity to noodle/sketch, but where they're on they're ON. Crying oozes and seeps rock 'n' roll: The Grand Hour EP's "Shocker in Gloomtown," Bee Thousand's "Gold Star for Robot Boy" or "Tractor Rape Chain," and the then unreleased dive-bomb "My Valuable Hunting Knife" -- now the definitive version -- all compete well with hissing cauldron classics like Thunders' Heartbreakers' Live at Max's and the Replacements' Stink. I.E., it's hot. Just the material and the vocals are inconsistent.