or better or worse, we here at Stylus, in all of our autocratic consumer-crit greed, are slaves to timeliness. A record over six months old is often discarded, deemed too old for publication, a relic in the internet age. That's why each week at Stylus, one writer takes a look at an album with the benefit of time. Whether it has been unjustly ignored, unfairly lauded, or misunderstood in some fundamental way, we aim with On Second Thought to provide a fresh look at albums that need it.

Every once in a good while, the entire music industry goes completely out of its fucking mind in pursuit of "the next big thing." Those of us who'd already found the secret doorway to the underground by 1994 were scratching our heads in disbelief at the near-total absence of commercial considerations when recruiting new talent. The rationale was ostensibly that each of the Big Five (or however many heads the hydra had back then) was looking for its own Nirvana/Pearl Jam/Smashing Pumpkins, but the reckless abandon with which scores of patently anti-commercial groups were signed suggested that many A&R reps hadn't properly parsed the term "alternative." These clueless businessguys adopted such pop-unfriendly acts as Cop Shoot Cop, Jawbox and Trenchmouth to their newly commissioned 'alt-rock' divisions, and when the bands didn't move Nirvana-like units, they were summarily terminated.

Shudder to Think were one of a handful of envelope-pushing outfits that took advantage of a major label's (specifically Epic's) temporary insanity to cut an underground classic on the company dime. Despite the fact that the entire industry had gone apeshit over everything even remotely related to alt-rock, from a strategic marketing standpoint Shudder to Think's contract offer really should have gotten someone fired. The group trafficked in Gang of Four-inspired post-punk but mixed it up with wildly complex song structures, just about every time signature in the book, and a singer whose opera-caliber vibrato made the band's sound instantly identifiable. I know major labels are still signing decent rock bands these days, but STT made the Trail of Dead sound like Weezer in terms of accessibility. Still, Epic apparently gave them a workable marketing budget, as I'm pretty sure I recall seeing a video from Pony Express Record on MTV back in the day.

Regardless of who released it, Pony Express was a jaw-dropping, head-scratching masterpiece back in '94 and remains so today. These guys played furiously intellectual math rock before the term had even been coined, let alone before critics applied it to desultory instro-noodlers with nary a melodic sense to their name. Lead track (and single, for chrissakes!!) "Hit Liquor" sets the tone quickly and uncompromisingly, sounding like Gang of Four with two Andy Gills and no Jon King-- no offense, but Craig Wedren's one of the best vocal technicians in rock, and probably one of the top five post-punk singers ever. The vibrato he appends to the word "under" in the verse is unsettling, even frightening at first, but while you're waiting for it to grow on ya, just revel in the hunks of discord guitarist Nate Larson and Wedren are flinging in your direction.

There aren't many bands that can graft honest-to-goodness pop hooks onto such mathy dissonance, but STT gets the job done track after track. "Gang of $" alternates between minor-2nd staccato riffing on the verse and a melodically catchy chorus you'll be singing along after just one listen. Ditto for "9 Fingers on You," which more or less does the same thing at a faster tempo. But Shudder don't slip on the slower material; indeed, as "Sweet Year Old" attest, Wedren's quivering tones wax even more ominous at reduced speeds. Also, this record probably sounded better than anything else in its genre at the time--engineers Ted Niceley and Andy Wallace applied an antiseptic finish to the songs that puts the melodies front and center, where they belong.

Throughout the album STT keeps the music delightfully unpredictable, using rockist buildups that arise suddenly from arpeggiated solemnity ("Kissi Penny"), devoting an entire song to a single chord ("X-French Tee Shirt"), or covering a Southern rock hit by the Atlanta Rhythm Section ("So Into You"). Wedren made sure each song on the record packed a chewy melodic center, and that's the main reason someone's writing so enthusiastically about it eight years later. I've been using the term "math rock" pretty frequently throughout this review, but (alert! hackneyed but true critical cliche dead ahead!) like all great albums, Pony Express Record transcends the limits of its genre to claim its status as a challenging yet accessible classic. And for their achievement, Epic allowed Shudder to Think one more record before dropping them as the bottom fell out of the alt-rock boom. Fortunately, unlike many worthwhile albums from the period, this one's still in print and relatively cheap--so get out there and soak up some history.