photo by John Falls
A vintage Polvo band photo
Oh, Polvo.
Polvo, Polvo, Polvo.
You were one of the weirdest and coolest of the nineties Chapel Hill indie-rock bands, and your name is so fun to say.
Archers of Loaf was burly, like mucking around in a tar pit. Superchunk was speedy, like skidding over an oil slick. Both of them unleashed obvious soundalikes in their wake.
But no one was ever quite sure what you were, Polvo, and there was never anyone else quite like you. You were dark and dissonant and let us think you were playing all these arcane foreign scales, even though you were really just making up scales you thought sounded cool. You were too primitive to be math-rock, too cryptic to be rock-rock. You were heavy and delicate at the same time, and no one really sounded like that.
Unlike Archers, who got back together but didn’t make new music (until soon), or Superchunk, who never broke up, you reformed in 2008, when a lot of that was going around. You got a whole new music-industry apparatus’s attention with nationally acclaimed Merge releases In Prism and Siberia. That was well done, Polvo.
Now, as Merge just announced, we’re getting reissues of your first two albums, Cor-Crane Secret and Today’s Active Lifestyles. Those are both stone classics, Polvo, and our original copies are well worn.
Both limited-edition reissues, which come out February 28, are on colored vinyl, with updates of the iconic artwork, and people can pre-order each from Merge now. But why am I telling you this, Polvo? You must know already. Thanks for the memories.
While we're memory-lane-ing, let's check out the video for Cor-Crane classic "Vibracobra" and the entirety of Today's Active Lifestyles:
