The Pod by Ween

This Schnitzel repress of The Pod sounds Amazing! Makes my CD sound third generation. My only regret is that I haven't picked up previous Ween Schnitzel presses! The Mollusk next?

You'll either get this album or you won't. If you do, you'll slowly grow to love it. These guys are geniuses and to my mind this is their finest work. Some have said that they didn't like Pure Guava but I disagree. Written at more or less the same time this is also an excellent album.

...this is the Ween album to buy. Their masterpiece. The current pop Ween are average but this album is sprinkled with genius throughout. Fake English psychadelia done brilliantly (Right To The Ways...), outtakes from unmade Rock Operas (Dr Rock, Cpt Fantasy, Winkle), tracks of twisted ugliness not seen since the Buttholes at their best (Awesome Sound, Stallion, Jammy Pac) all infused with a bong-humour. Truely, one of the best 10 LPs I've got and head and shoulders above their other releases in my opinion.

On the surface, Ween's "The Pod" is a shambling mis-matched mockery of music, and on my first listen, I felt disgusted that I had wasted my money on such trash. A few months later, with all but one of the tracks stagnant in my memory, I gave The Pod another go. This paranoid, uneasy collage of bad smells and nauseating food, wasn't for the entertainment of the listener, but exclusively for Ween themselves. You start to realise The Pod is much like that Zappa album you only managed to crack 30 years later; you just didn't understand the broad concept at the time. Given, the album does have a very shaky start, The Pod version of Sorry Charlie just doesn't cut it next to a live session, as do the accompanying opening tracks. Doctor Rock is distinctively weak sounding, and could have done better if it hadn't been forced through a synthesized filter; again, these tracks just seem to be better at a concert where the humor has time to set in. Luckily, by the time you've rolled around to Pollo Asado, the real Ween begins to emerge, grabbing you by the gunnels and yanking you through a dirty Mac Donalds straw, slap-bang into the territory of the Great Boognish itself. Back to Pollo Asado though; a track that is part of a continuity of brown sound --- almost like one of thos short films on Sesame Street circa 1979 where a 5-year old Spanish girl and her mother would do various day-to-day tasks, the child narrating --- trust me, when you hear it, you'll understand what I mean. From here on in, you will encounter what must be an unconscious tribute to the late, great Frank Zappa. Sadly, most of the tracks are easily forgettable, the titles of each track more-so. The Pod should be approached with caution, as unlike with a lot of Ween's records, you need to go into this one with all channels of thought open.