The Hospitals - I've Visited the Island of Jocks and Jazz

Genre rock Publisher Load Records External Links Load Records

When I inquired about booking a flight to the destination from whence Frisco duo the Hospitals returned, my travel agent vehemently dissuaded me from vacationing there. The resorts are only half constructed, constantly howling winds make personal conversation almost impossible, and the island's not grounded, I was warned; it bobs and dips in the ocean like a rubber ducky in a full, turbulent bathtub.

Maybe Adam Stonehouse and Ned Meiners committed I've Visited the Island of Jocks and Jazz to tape in this mythical neither-region? This scuzzed-out slab is the tattered-postcard-portrait of hysterical disorientation. "She's not there/I'm not here/Mom and Dad are dead/Let's just get outta here," Stonehouse shout-sobs over the single-minded distorto guitar molasses of "She's Not There." Chris Woodhouse's oppressive anti-production makes the whole shebang sound as though it's being heard by an autistic: "Airplanes There" is an anthemic glimpse at how Thurston Moore's Psychic Hearts might have turned out on a $3 budget with no time to rehearse, while "Be" skids through a discordant skree-scene free-for-all - cornered, squealing guitars, bracing piano minor chords - coming to rest in some squalid, Confusion Is Sex Sonic Youth cul-de-sac and the drums on the Reynols-like "I Had A Crummy Shift" get mixed down to shuffles beneath Meiner's four-note, burnt-amp wah-wah and Stonehouse's muffled moans wafting uneasily from each speaker. Rough going out there, for sure, but if the fact that the next Sightings voyage is months away casts darkness on your days, take comfort in this Hospitals-ity.