Dog Faced Hermans, Mental Blocks for All Ages (side A)

Dog Faced Hermans' first two albums placed them in a more overt punk tradition, with similarities to contemporaries like Bogshed and the Shrubs.  With 1991's Mental Blocks for All Ages, they leapt toward the artier style for which they're best remembered.  The parts no longer fit together neatly in their song structures — instead a more shifting approach allowed parts to move between each other in a field.  The resultant tracks still have elements of song structure, but the individual parts fight the overarching structure as much as they help to define it.  Each musician's playing is neatly defined and uses repetition within its own logic.  While the timbres retain the distortion and impact of punk rock, they use these qualities as much for reference as to create a sense of power or propulsion.  The relatively primitive recording quality manages to capture both the bristling energy and the more diffuse traits of the music.  The simple cover image emphasizes Dog Faced Hermans' punk rock roots more than the abstraction that they began to explore here.