Acorn

The long lost, out of print, and originally LP-only first album from the Mommyheads finally made its CD debut with this Fang Records reissue. At the time Acorn was recorded, the three members of the group were ragtag kids — two-thirds of the group were still New York City high-school students, while leader Adam Cohen, the band's senior member, was only a mere 19 years of age. And although Cohen would later move the band's base of operations out West and shift its lineup, at this point in its history the Mommyheads were still most decidedly East Coast denizens. A fabulously brash and quirky outfit, too, like a trio of tuneful, teenaged Captain Beefhearts recording at Abbey Road right around 1968 or so, and then filtered back through a simple, jury-rigged bedroom studio in the post-downtown N.Y. era. Or something like that. However you want to describe the album, it is brimming with a youthful overload of musical ideas and complicated arrangements, all within still recognizably pop song formats. It is as if both the post-punk and Beatlesque versions of XTC came together in the same band, with the psychedelic jones replaced by a predilection for art rock. The album is given to outbursts of sick New York City funk ("Earthtones") and jerky, irregular time signatures ("Junky Tubb"), the likes of which hadn't been heard since Liquid Liquid was on the scene, and it even has the most adroit stab at futuristic, outré surf-jazz ("Space Jazz") since Are You Experienced? was in rotation. Acorn is extremely clever — perhaps too clever for its own good on occasion — something the band would eventually outgrow. But when the music is this audacious and amazing, a little youthful indiscretion is perfectly acceptable.