Release Date: May 8, 2012
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Indie Rock
Record label: Partisan
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy Marvelous Clouds from Amazon
With Marvelous Clouds, Aaron Freeman's solo debut achieves the near impossible, sounding like both a totally logical continuation of his band of the previous two decades, Ween, as well as a massive and legitimate musical step forward. Known to his fans as "Gene Ween," the moniker he has performed under since 1984, Freeman takes his own name for the first time on Marvelous Clouds, covering 13 songs by '60s/'70s poet/crooner Rod McKuen. Freeman's enormous sense of pathos -- honed from two decades of songs that mixed funny voices with a deep sense of emotional hurt -- is on full display, McKuen's fragile schmaltziness transformed magically into an asset.
Even as part of the brilliantly twisted Ween, Aaron Freeman has an old kind of pop sensibility. What makes Ween so tremendous is that they juxtapose an old-time country track like “Drifter in the Dark” with one of the most fucked-up sounds ever put to record: “Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)”. Now, Gene Ween has shed his pseudonym and strode out on his own as Aaron Freeman, releasing an album of Rod McKuen covers titled, Marvelous Clouds.
is available now