12 O'Clock Track: Pitchfork, "Rana (Frogs)"

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Monday, June 11, 2012

12 O'Clock Track / Music 12 O'Clock Track: Pitchfork, "Rana (Frogs)"

Posted by Kevin Warwick on 06.11.12 at 12:00 PM

Before the Night Marchers, Obits, Hot Snakes, Sultans, Rocket From the Crypt, and Drive Like Jehu, there was Pitchfork—the first collaboration between Rick Froberg and John Reis, which lasted from 1986 till 1990. The band only released (and eventually reissued) one full-length album, Eucalyptus, and it basically sounds like a raw version of Drive Like Jehu—the group it would eventually morph into. Pitchfork worked a similar angle, splicing sometimes scattershot posthardcore together with Wipers-style rock 'n' roll and a very late-80s/early-90s sound.

Today's 12 O'Clock Track, "Rana (Frogs)," showcases Reis's driving guitar—he's always more concerned with propulsion than with piddling around admiring the scenery. Froberg's ageless nasal singing doesn't enter till halfway through the nearly five-minute song, creating a cool sort of tension that's released once he drops in his first-wave-of-flannel-style vocals. It's a great track from a great album that also happens to be the starting point of an incredible lineage.