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Jan 28, 2014In many ways, the demo sounds like a strong rough draft for the album that followed, with a bit less electric guitar punch and a shade more twang, but documenting performances that are essentially just as strong in terms of chops and commitment, while spotting the subtle differences in the arrangements, is where fans will have the most fun.
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Jan 30, 2014It’s challenging, then, to appreciate the boldness of No Depression, the extent to which the members of Uncle Tupelo insisted on interdependency, on an American story. We don’t have to do that anymore--folks don’t self-identify in the same way, and hardly anyone loves just one genre monogamously--but there’s still something furious and prideful here, something worth hearing.
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Mar 28, 2014If you care a thing for rock ‘n’ roll, country, or American music in general, No Depression is simply essential.
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Jan 28, 2014This expanded reissue adds Not Forever the 1989 demo tape that got them signed.... It shows a vision startlingly complete, and its scrappiness occasionally serves the songs better.
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Dec 12, 2014Amid ballads such as Whiskey Bottle, there’s Graveyard Shift, which shifts between Pixiesesque loud and quiet parts; here it’s only Tweedy’s Illinois twang that marks them out from their grunge peers. The demos are, as you might expect, sketchy stuff, but therein lies the appeal of digging into the early work of any rock pioneer.
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Jan 28, 2014The 'odds and ends' packaged at the end of disc one feel like Jay Farrar’s discarded solo off-cuts, although disc two’s collection of demos is an intriguing listen; the ten tracks from the Not Forever, Just For Now tapes being what persuaded Rockville (then Giant) to sign them in the first place.
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Jan 28, 2014No Depression: Legacy Edition chronicles this collision between restlessness and ambition, and portrays a band successfully wrangling both.
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Jan 28, 2014The money shot is still the original 13-track album, which stridently argues (and proves) the thesis that Uncle Tupelo were the Velvet Underground of '90s alt-country.
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Jan 28, 2014This new 35-track Legacy Edition’s ample extras--revved-up outtakes, forlorn covers, rare live cuts and, best of all, its strikingly hungry lo-fi demos--provide an intriguing peek behind the curtain at a young band flush with potential.
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MagnetFeb 21, 2014Touchstones like "No Depression" and "John Hardy," Farrar shows flair and dynamic skill, while Tweedy works the band's rocking formula on "Train" and guilelessly narrates small town life with "Screen Door." [No. 106, p.51]
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Mar 31, 2014The album’s immediacy is impossible to escape.
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Feb 6, 2014There are any number of landmark albums that critics are quick to label as essential, but given the fact No Depression jumpstarted an entire genre, none deserve that label more. The kudos earned by this good Uncle are clearly well earned.
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Jan 28, 2014Listening to Uncle Tupelo’s maiden album in this newly expanded form both underscores its essential power and points up the arbitrariness of its watershed reputation.