from Helium - The Dirt of Luck (1995)

Throwing Muses, of course; Breeders, alright; Sleater Kinney, sure; but in the fruitful female-fronted indie-band scene, when I get to Belly or this here Helium things do start to sound a bit reiterative for me, what with the stiff guitar chord progressions (even though Mary Timony does try to flourish them up here and there), or the sedate affectation in the vocals. In fact, other than the evocative piano miniature "Comet #9", the song that caught my ear here the most is even called Cannon..., wait, no, Superball, that's it, not "Cannonball", "Superball".

None of this is bad, mind you, and I do get hints that there is a differentiated musical personality lurking under it, but it could have been pushed much more to the front, along with those few musical ideas and elements that fleetingly tried to evade hegemonic 1990's alternative rock tropes, only to keep coming back for more, like people who can't decide between the smothering comfort of being in a relationship and the freedom of being by their sorry selves.

Anyway, I will most likely check out some more Timony stuff at some point (I heard The Golden Dove years ago, I think I enjoyed it, but apparently not to the point of making a point of returning to it soon), but this one, I feel, fades too much into an already too familiar musical landscape to be able to make its own case. Perhaps it could have benefited (in what concerns my appreciation) from my having heard it sooner - first exposure, with its biographical resonance and subjective novelty effect, being a significant factor in our relative judgement of related artistic works -; although, by definition, it is logically impossible for me to ascertain if that would in fact have made a difference; but, as the socratic acknowledgement of what we don't or can't know is a foundation for knowledge in itself, and the awareness of our cognitive limitations and perceptual biases seems to have become one of the most fundamental forms of personal growth we can aspire to these days, I think I'll just embrace the doubt.