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Not Fade Away - Reissue Review from Issue #63 May-June 2006

Tarkio

Omnibus (Kill Rock Stars)

By

Unless you were a student at the University of Montana in Missoula during a few very particular years in the late 1990s, thus earning yourself sentimental insider stripes, the main attraction of these otherwise little-heard recordings will be the presence of bandleader/vocalist Colin Meloy, who later moved to Portland and became master of ceremonies in the three-ring twee-pop anachronism that is the Decemberists. You can hear Meloy here in the place he was then, mentally and geographically, and the opportunity to listen in as he struggles to transcend those boundaries amounts to a master course in American ambition’s will to be heard. “This is not the life I’m meant to lead,” Meloy’s ranch-bound character sings in “Save Yourself”, one of the collection’s prettiest tunes, while the boys do their Scud Mountainy best behind him. You believe him. The rest of this perhaps overly comprehensive two-disc compilation alternates between unobtrusive semi-acoustic college rock and banjo-flavored Americana memorable primarily as the sound of a talented Montana kid seeking his true voice in a different world entirely — and starting to find it.

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Originally Featured in Issue #63 May-June 2006

Cover of Issue #63 May-June 2006

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