The Replacements: Tim

8.2    Must Hear

There act cleaned up a little bit too much here, taking away the transcendent sloppiness that allowed their true masterpiece Let it Be stay grounded and so humanly relatable.  Westerberg still comes off like a man who can't completely get it together, he'll always be shambling, but it is very much tighten up.  That of course works for the record in that theres no fluff that ran so rampant on Let it Be (it work for that album, nut it be a tired gimmick the second time around).  A growth was necessary, no one can give of a true vibe of being a slacker forever without falling apart, but I'll still mourn for the Replacements of past.  Still though we got Bastards of Young off this.  Westerberg already showed his capabilities as the voice of a generation, but here he makes his most conscious effort at a grand statement.  That really sums up the album, its the first where you can really tell their trying, before it come off with the ease of Pavements first three.  Here Comes A Regular Is the ballad of the album, it take on a angelic reverb production thats strikingly grandiose and ultimate numbing compared to the sparser production of the previous albums Androgynous which works better with its sparseness.  Trying isn't bad, Replacements worked their asses of on all their albums I'm sure, but when genius filters in more organically its more potent.  This reads very negatively don't get me wrong its a fantastic album its just hard to put out of mind what came before this.