While I’m going to call this S/T, I’m not quite sure that’s the official title. Maybe it’s Harvey Milk. With the sleeve I have from Hydra Head, I can’t be sure. There hasn’t been much official about this release—it’s what should have been Harvey Milk’s debut (instead of My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be)—since it was first recorded and shelved in the early ‘90s, so my screwing up the title can’t be the worst injustice its suffered over the years.
Previously only available on their 2009 tour in a limited run vinyl, the Georgia act’s first statement as recorded by Bob Weston has been remastered for proper aural stimuli from the band’s master copy, rather than the merely “pretty good” version that’s circulated the intertubes. It’s a damn good set of hardcore-influenced hard rock and “alt” that so permeated the time period it sprang from—even more bizarre than the era’s commercial successes, if you could call acts like the Butthole Surfers a success)
S/T does have that so-anti-hip-it’s-hip Chunklet-esque aura surrounding it, and it’s hard to separate the album (and Harvey Milk themselves) from the hype in the small circle of literati it exists in. When you step back, it measures up, but it’s not a flawless work (like most formative pieces, it begins stronger than it ends) and it takes a while to properly analyze in its context. Still, when performing such experiments, do not forget to rock appropriately.
In A Word: Nascent
