Sebadoh
Act Surprised
Release Date: May 24, 2019
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: Dangerbird Records
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Album Review: Act Surprised by Sebadoh
Great, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
Sebadoh's musical legacy dates back more than three decades, and frontman Lou Barlow's career extends even further into the musical canon. Members of the band have seen each other through thick and thin: divorce, improbably successful offshoot musical endeavours, and the perpetual — if, at times, tumultuous — ebb and flow of life. Fittingly, Act Surprised is about resilience. The album ruminates on themes of loss and regret, without allowing them to eclipse all the fun life has to offer. "Medicate, I hate my brain" moans Barlow on ….
Based on rating 7.5/10
Arriving a good 14 years after its predecessor, Sebadoh's Defend Yourself, in 2013, was less a comeback than an act of closure, like one of those standalone reunion specials that follow the demise of a beloved long-running TV series. Where much of the indie-rock icons' celebrated 1990s catalog invited us to eavesdrop on Lou Barlow's roller-coaster romance with his main muse (girlfriend-turned-wife Kathleen Billus), his contributions to Defend Yourself updated their relationship status one last time with a striking degree of finality. "Someone else has found her way into my soul," he sang at the top of album opener "I Will": "Things have changed, no longer need to be with you.
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