Word: mollusks
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Making a successful experimental rock concept album is not an easy undertaking. Ween's newest creation, The Mollusk-- which lurks through humored rants and muddied chants, a limited spectrum of folk drones and a flirtation with quirky electronica--tries so hard to unite its songs in a coherent, enjoyable progression that it never finds a central logic...
Relationships come the closest to a uniting subject, but what concept album doesn't concern them? In the undulating "She Wanted To Leave," Ween summarizes The Mollusk's typical lyrical plight: "Three men came aboard my ship/And took my true love from me/I couldn't believe/She wanted to leave." Forty-four minutes of the sea as a vehicle for reflection on social interaction may not have been the right choice for Ween's ultimate purpose...
...what exactly is the connection between aquatic animals and love? Any reasonable answer is definitely a reach for any imagination, yet Ween makes a viable attempt. The conversational title track speaks of the mollusk "emulating the ocean's sound," an underwater prophet of the trinity "casting light at the sun with its wandering eye." Although absurdly heavy, the lyrics appear to have direction...
...album mold--especially as a slap in the face of the irreverence usually associated with the genre. Blending in with the sanctimonious flow, the mantra "Let's be forever, let forever be free" brings the religious overtones to a new dimension. Barring the colorful electronic twinkle repeated throughout "The Mollusk," the lyrical gravity of this song belies the guitar-strumming sappiness...
...movie, a marauding mollusk would probably be played by a giant clam. But the real-life monster swimming amuck in the Great Lakes is a tiny creature the size of a fingernail. With its jaunty brown stripes, a solitary zebra mussel looks cute, not threatening. The trouble is that the animal is anything but a loner, and its tendency to form colonies of thousands, even millions, makes it threatening indeed...