| Glum | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Giant Sand |
| Cover: | Giant Sand - Glum.png |
| Released: | 1994 |
| Studio: | Kingsway |
| Genre: | Rock |
| Length: | 49:41 |
| Label: | Imago |
| Producer: |
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| Prev Title: | Stromausfall |
| Prev Year: | 1993 |
| Next Title: | Goods and Services |
| Next Year: | 1995 |
Glum is an album by the American band Giant Sand, released in 1994.[1] [2] It was the band's first album to be distributed by a major label. Giant Sand supported it with a North American tour.[3]
Recorded at Daniel Lanois's New Orleans home studio, the album was produced by Malcolm Burn, Howe Gelb, and John Convertino.[4] Gelb wrote "Bird Song" with his young daughter.[4] "Frontage Road" is about characters living in a subdivision. Pappy Allen sang on the cover of Hank Williams's "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"; the album is dedicated to him.[5] [6] Victoria Williams contributed vocals to "Spun". Chris Cacavas, of Green on Red, played keyboards on "1 Helvakowboy Song". Rainer Ptacek played a dobro on "Left"; Peter Holsapple contributed slide guitar to "Yer Ropes".[7] "Painted Bird" was inspired by the Jerzy Kosiński novel.[8]
The Philadelphia Daily News wrote that "Gelb writes and growls the glum, surreal sagas of life on the edge with the passion of a man possessed." Rolling Stone said that the title track "trails an especially gnarled solo with an Ivory-soft surf-guitar finale as its lyrics twist from contempt to confusion." Newsday concluded that "if music this genuinely idiosyncratic can penetrate the mainstream, then there truly has been an alternative revolution."[9] Trouser Press opined that Gelb's "unilateral rejection of form can get a bit tiring, especially when the meandering 'Frontage Rd.' runs smack into the stoner fusion of '1 Helvakowboy Song'."[10]
The Vancouver Sun praised "Gelb's idiosyncratic electric guitar style—something like getting Crispin Glover drunk and setting him loose with Neil Young's gear."[11] The Washington Post deemed the album a "self-indulgently slapdash effort."[12] The Times Colonist determined that "Glum sounds like an electric and electrifying soundtrack for a modern Heart of Darkness, if Kurtz were holed up in a broken-down trailer in the California desert instead of the jungle."[13] The Arizona Republic stated that the album "blends the experimental and obscure with twangy, insistent rock beats."
Mojo considered Glum to be "an obscure gem" and Giant Sand's "masterpiece".[14]