What Fresh Hell Is This? Explained

What Fresh Hell is This?
Type:studio
Artist:Art Bergmann
Cover:File:ArtBergmannWhatFreshHellisThisAlbumCover.jpg
Released:1995
Genre:Alternative rock
Label:Epic
Producer:Chris Wardman
Prev Title:Art Bergmann
Prev Year:1991
Next Title:Design Flaw
Next Year:1998

What Fresh Hell is This? is the fourth studio album by Art Bergmann, released in 1995 on Epic Records.[1] The album gets its name from a quotation by American wit Dorothy Parker.

The album was written primarily while Bergmann was in rehab, recovering from his prior battles with drug addiction.[2]

In its year end poll of its newspapers' music critics, Southam Newspapers named the album as one of the ten best albums of 1995, with London Free Press critic Ian Gillespie lauding Bergmann as "a Canadian rock genius, doomed to hover around the edges of commercial obscurity", and Calgary Herald critic James Muretich calling the album "more tortured, timeless tunes of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll by Canada's subculture answer to Ray Davies, Leonard Cohen and Paul Westerberg".[3]

It won the Juno Award for Best Alternative Album in 1996.[4] Bergmann followed up with Design Flaw, an album of rerecorded versions of songs from his earlier albums, in 1998, but did not record another full-length album of new material until The Apostate in 2016.[5]

Notes and References

  1. News: Survivor Art Bergmann has a new contract, new album, new outlook. Ottawa Citizen. February 16, 1995. newspapers.com.
  2. "Art Bergmann's fresh start". The Globe and Mail, March 7, 1995.
  3. "The best rock albums of '95". Edmonton Journal, December 24, 1995.
  4. Web site: Art Bergmann. Juno Awards.
  5. http://exclaim.ca/music/article/art_bergmann_returns_with_the_apostate_premieres_new_track "Art Bergmann Returns with 'The Apostate,' Premieres New Track"