Insect Hospital

Personnel: Joel Crutcher (guitar, lap steel guitar); Mark Stone (guitar, background vocals); S.L. Telles (keyboards, tapes); Shane Shelton (keyboards); Lee Ann Cameron (background vocals).
Audio Mixers: Joel Crutcher; ST 37.
Recording information: Alamo Drafthouse Cinema (05/1994-10/2000); Cthulu's Lair (05/1994-10/2000).
Arranger: ST 37.
Much like the earlier Spaceage, also released on the Black Widow label from Italy, The Insect Hospital is somewhere between a catchall and a cohesive album, allowing ST 37 to indulge in homages to influences as well as coming up with fine new songs. The album as a whole is dedicated to fellow Texan and musical legend Roky Erickson, whose "Cold Night for Alligators" gets engagingly reworked here, while said cover is introduced by "The Portable Insect Hospital," with the band telling a shaggy-dog story (perhaps) about Erickson himself over some drones. The two other covers explore further extremes -- the Germs, who indirectly provided the name for the band's own CDR label, get their "Land of Treason" ripped through in a way not far off from the original, while Brian Eno is once more honored with a merrily psychotic take on "Seven Deadly Finns." But it actually starts off with a striking non-musical tribute with "Solaris," which as described in the liner notes is very much inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky's famed Soviet sci-fi film. Specifically, it's the "sentient ocean" portrayed that gets thanked, and the nearly 15-minute-long song makes for a strong interpretation of that idea, a central, meditative keyboard pattern providing the anchor for the song's building, ominous arrangement. Meanwhile, the second half of the CD -- split into two phases -- is nothing less than selections from the band's own soundtrack to Fritz Lang's own sci-fi masterpiece, Metropolis, three long pieces that slot into the band's space rock jam side perfectly well. The contrast between the mechanistic visions of the film and the fluid, supple Hawkwind-style roils and freakouts from the band is an intriguing one that works better than might be expected, with the music standing out quite well on its own. ~ Ned Raggett