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Album Details

• Artist: Ween
• Album: The Pod
• Label: Elektra
• Year of Release: 1991
• ME Rating: Indie Classic
• Reviewed by: challey on 2004-12-10

I have to start off by saying that The Pod by Ween is one of my absolute favorite albums of all time. There will never be another album that sounds anything like it; the entire album sounds like the band (or Gene and Dean, at that point of their career) took a guitar (with a powerful wahwah pedal) and keyboard underwater and recorded whatever came out. None of the songs are particularly structured, yet each one has it's own distinct melody and style. What's most impressive is that Ween stretches out this album to 23 songs in 76 minutes, but none of the songs are throwaways. Actually, every single song is extremely impressive in it's own way.

Right from the beginning, it's easy to see that The Pod is unlike anything else ever recorded. "Strap On That Jammy Pac" at first sounds like a mess; the guitar sits on one chord for what seems like days at a time before changing to another, all while the cymbals are hit as fast as possible. After a few listens, however, it becomes apparent that the song follows a regular blues-rock formula, but about ten times slower. The murky, drugged-up vocals sound weird for someone not used to Ween, but are found in some form in any song on the album. At the time of recording, both band members were addicted to using Scotchguard as a drug, and it shows.

Not all of the songs are so inaccessible; "Dr. Rock" was clearly influenced by 70's mainstream rock, and "Sorry Charlie" could easily be a Grateful Dead song if it wasn't for the distorted vocals. "Demon Sweat" sounds like early Prince (who happens to be one of Ween's biggest influences) up until the amazing fuzzed-out keyboard/guitar near the end of the song. The sludge of "Can U Taste the Waste" and "Sketches of Winkle" could fit in nicely with the 80s metal scene.

One of the best aspects of The Pod is that Ween were still at the beginning of their career, and they weren't so self-conscious of their work yet. On "Right To the Ways and the Rules of the World," which is probably the best track, Gene makes it three-and-a-half minutes into the song before screaming "Chewing the grits" and bursting out in uncontrollable laughter. "She Fucks Me" has background vocals singing "Pork roll, egg, and cheese on a Kaiser bun" non-stop while the main vocalist sings semi-seriously about a girl he met "at a Living Earth show."

The Pod is probably Ween's most difficult album to get into, but fans should love it. Gene and Dean will probably never top the work they did on this album, but it is still better than almost anything that most bands will ever release.

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