Umber (album)
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| Umber | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | September 15, 1989 | |||
| Recorded | June 14–15, 1989 | |||
| Studio | Waterfront Studios (Hoboken, New Jersey) | |||
| Genre | Post-hardcore, noise rock | |||
| Length | 35:47 | |||
| Label | Glitterhouse Records | |||
| Producer | Bitch Magnet, Mike McMackin | |||
| Bitch Magnet chronology | ||||
| ||||
Umber is the first full-length album by the American post-hardcore band Bitch Magnet. The band had added second guitarist David Galt since their previous year's release, the eight-song EP Star Booty. In 2004 Umber was listed in Mojo's "Lost Albums You Must Own".[1]
Music journalist Andrew Earles described the sound on Umber as "an aggressive and heavy approach to post-hardcore/indie rock that had a lot in common with the aggro noise rock that dominated the Amphetamine Reptile and late-'80s Touch and Go rosters." However, Earles stated that Umber "lacked the unweildy, testosterone-fueled depravity and nihilism" of these albums, and that the album instead "[relies] on the hazy, often buried but melodic" vocals of Sooyoung Park.[2] Jason Ankeny of AllMusic described the album's third track "Clay" as a "taut exploration of extremist spatial dynamics." He described the album's fifth track "Douglas Leader" as a "quietly hypnotic minimalist ode 180-degrees removed from everything else in the Bitch Magnet oeuvre to date."[3]
Release and reception
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |    [4] |
| Uncut | [5] |
Umber was first released in 1989 on LP by Glitterhouse Records with an all yellowish-umber colored cover with the band's name and album title set in a small bold font at its center. The record's 10 tracks were paired with the band's previous eight-song EP, Star Booty, and issued by Communion on cassette and CD that same year.
Jason Ankeny of AllMusic gave the album three and a half stars out of five.[3]
In 2011, Umber was remastered by Alan Douches and released in a box-set containing with the rest of the band's catalog.[6]
Track listing
All songs written by Bitch Magnet
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Motor" | 3:48 |
| 2. | "Navajo Ace" | 2:33 |
| 3. | "Clay" | 3:38 |
| 4. | "Joan of Arc" | 2:35 |
| 5. | "Douglas Leader" | 4:48 |
| 6. | "Goat-Legged Country God" | 3:05 |
| 7. | "Big Pining" | 3:17 |
| 8. | "Joyless Street" | 2:17 |
| 9. | "Punch and Judy" | 2:54 |
| 10. | "Americruiser" | 6:52 |
The 2011 box-set also contains alternate versions "Motor", "Joan of Arc", "Big Pining", "Joyless Street" and "Punch and Judy".
