Alligator Demented — Catalunya

Seattle, late 1991. L.A. execs land to sign on the next Nirvana. At the time, the band is selling 300,000 copies of "Nevermind" a week. This therefore whets the interest of the majors for grunge music. Despite the all-out frenzy, Alligator Demented manages to fly under the radar. The Steve Rash (guitar and vocals)-led band is nevertheless part of the scene. They play the first set of Beat Happening, rub shoulders with the poet Steven J. Bernstein, who has just signed with Sub Pop, and work on a project (never completed) with Swallow. His music may not have the impact of the Screaming Trees or Mudhoney, but it is honest. Is it because it evokes more The Walkabouts or Tad rather than Soundgarden ? Is it related to the introverted character of Steve Rash, beside whom Kurt Cobain could almost be seen as jovial ? Indeed, despite a highly acclaimed single ("Punk-Drunk Love"), the Redmond-based band is snubbed by record companies to whom the poetry of their texts must have seemed old fashioned and repulsive. But the guitarist and his associates (Hector Pla on bass, Richard Gumb on drums) do not give up. Between 1993 and 2006, they produce five albums, almost as many as Mudhoney, but to total indifference. The reason: rough almost slipshod production, driven by an unnatural desire to embody original grunge. A slip that leads them despite themselves to punk (one can refer to "Los Angeles" by X) and metal (comparable to Queens of The Stone Age). At the brink of implosion, the band decides to embrace their true calling and thus deliver "Catalunya", their coming-of-age album. Like a tightrope walker, the album manages to balance the heritage of The Melvins, Green River and Hüsker Dü, whilst pointing the spotlight on the ambivalent personality of Rash, whose hard alligator skin hides a soft heart, a songster who is both lyrical and caustic, a genius arranger but who also was the gravedigger of his own talent until the redemption of "Catalunya". Ecstatic and airy.