Track Listing

1. Nonphenomenal lineage
2. A.M 180
3. Collective dreamwish of upperclass elegance
4. Summer here kids
5. Laughing stock
6. Under the Western Freeway
7. Everything beutiful is far away
8. Poisoned at Hartsy Thai Food
9. Go progress chrome
10. Why took your advice
11. Lawn and so on

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9799 in Music
• Released on: 2006-07-01
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
They claim that their favourite band is ELO, but you wouldn't know it to hear Grandaddy's first full-length album. Indeed, it's only the Californian quintet's beards that suggest any kinship with 1970's pomp-rock. On the evidence of Under The Western Freeway, there's very little worth doing in music that Sebadoh, Pavement and Pixies haven't already done between them. Some people may remember surprise radio hit "AM180", a jaunty clattering exercise in raucous fuzz pop. In its way, it's a typical Grandaddy song: lyrics whose downcast nature you wouldn't notice thanks to his colleagues' freewheeling clatter; and the unmistakeable sound of a band who can't see the point of a studio when you've, like, got a house. And because tracks like "Laughing Stock" and "Collective Dreamwish Of Upperclass Elegance" are stuffed with hooks so big you could pull down the Eiffel Tower with them, you'll forgive them anything. Which is just as well, because those really are terrible beards. --Peter Paphides

CD Description
Ladies and gentlemen, please hold your calls, we have a winner. Modesto, California's Grandaddy smacks you upside the head with the melodic one-two punch of the opening tracks andseldom lets up after that. Broken-down synthesizers wheeze and squeak out melodies that pass "the old gray whistle test" with a vengeance (i.e. you'll be whistling them for weeks). UNDER THE WESTERN FREEWAY is an auspicious debut. With a couple of big, burly guys that adhere to the TAD school of haute couture and an undeniable vocal similarity to Neil Young, this group is a wonderful, left field surprise.

Customer Reviews

A very important band
This is the most recent Grandaddy purchase I have made, and after already hearing and admiring their brilliant sophomore effort "The Sophtware Slump" as well as a few of their e.p.'s, it confirms my opinion that not only are Grandaddy one of the most consistently entertaining acts around, they are also creating music that somehow encapsulates the time we are living in, like no-one else can.

The songs are constructed not only of hypnotic melodies, but lyrics which deal with pre- and post-millenial angst, the uneasy, but bizarrely happy, marriage of technology and nature, and the belief that the world has never been further out of our control. In the hands of anyone else, this stuff would be clumsily, embarassingly post-modern nonsense, but in the hands of this one band, it's like music from an alternate reality.

Grandaddy: doing something strangely right.

The most compelling album I'd heard in years
While I hope to keep this review as balanced as possible, I have to admit that Grandaddy have become one of my all time favourite bands since I first heard ‘Under the Western Freeway’ 2 years ago.

They blend acoustic guitar, electric guitar, pianos and synths in a uniquely atmospheric fashion. Their songs often flick from grunge guitars, to melodic pianos and off into space age synths in just a few seconds, but it never feels wrong. The songs always seem to have a very definite flow and they rarely lose the listener in a mash of sounds. Tying all this together are some of the most wonderful lyrics ever penned. There are no love songs or tales of teenage angst here, instead you get songs that conjure up visions of ship-wrecked astronauts and sitting on a veranda having a beer and strumming on a six-string. Take the opening few lines of track 9:

“Go progress chrome
They paint the moon today
Some brand new future colour”

It’s original stuff and much more interesting than hearing someone yawn on about how they can’t live without a certain girl/boy.

People who have heard that one of Grandaddy’s biggest influences is ELO maybe put off by this idea; I know a lot of Grandaddy fans reject this statement outright, but I’m afraid it’s true. Don’t panic though, as someone who was brought up with ELO during the 70’s I can assure you we’re not talking ‘Mr Blue Sky’ or ‘Last Train to London’ here. In fact it’s ELO’s 1980 space opera ‘Time’ that seems to have had the most lasting impact on Grandaddy’s song-writing, but it’s fairly subtle. An odd riff or chord that sounds familiar or a few lyrics that are reminiscent of ‘The Rain is Falling’. If you’ve only heard ELO’s chart releases you’ll never notice.

Most people will be drawn in by the rocky ‘AM180’ with its ice cream van siren signalling one of the most distinctive intros ever, but patience reveals this is an album with incredible depth and character. The same goes for their second proper studio album ‘The Sophtware Slump’, which continues the themes established here (only even more space aged) without sounding rehashed.

So give ‘Under the Western Freeway’ a try, you’ll thank yourself in the long run.

Uncomparable
Everything Beautiful is Faraway instantly became one of my all time favourite songs literally as soon as I heard it. In my opinion although Sophtware Slump is a truly great album Under the Western Freeway easily shows the bands true potential and listens to them being recorded as they want to be heard. The only shame is that it has taken Grandaddy this long to be noticed. The only reason I listened to such a masterpiece was due to word of mouth recognition. it is more than time for them to have their moment and undoubtedly their flagship album would be this.