Sebadoh III

"So moving, so honest, so out of the ordinary."
- Melody Maker

"'III' is the band's quintessential statement."
- Mojo (4 stars)

It's hard to choose a 'definitive' Sebadoh album - everyone has their own favourite from the dog-eared, beloved discography. But 'III' is, perhaps, the key Sebadoh release. It furthered their 'many ideas from all directions colliding at once' aesthetic. It maintained the lo-fi, personal intimacy of their early work, while also taking determined steps out of the bedroom.

It caught the band at their iconic height, a messy jumble of a power trio, swapping instruments as often as they could, carving the most striking, personal and idiosyncratic songs, with a deceptively careless abandon. In its scattershot lo-fi kaleidoscope, 'III' offered a detail-perfect mosaic of 3 hyperactively-creative, sensitive guys and their obsessions: girls, pot and rock n' roll.

We're delighted then, to announce the repackaged re-release of this seminal album from Sebadoh, in fully re-mastered form, extended across 2CDs and containing previously unreleased gems, outtakes and remixes all hand-picked by the band, plus their infamous 'Gimme Indie Rock' EP, thanks to the re-issuing label, Domino.

Even before his acrimonious departure from Dinosaur Jr, bassist Lou Barlow was recording his own material. So, after leaving his old band, it wasn't long before Barlow's home-recorded cassettes were being sold through small 'indie' record stores.

Eric Gaffney, a multi-instrumentalist Barlow describes as "a musical terrorist", would form the yin to Barlow's yang in Sebadoh for their first two self-released cassettes, 'The Freed Weed' and 'Weed Forestin', before Jason Loewenstein, a teenaged musician and home-recorder who'd already purchased Sebadoh tapes, joined the group. They began to tour, with an ideal about freedom and democracy, which often simply turned into chaos - but the songwriting? Oh yes, the songwriting…

It was this lineup which produced the venerable classic 'Sebadoh III' album! There never was, and never will be again a band like Sebadoh were when they recorded 'III', so free and fearless, so curious and familiar. Sparing the varnish, 'III' helped inspire the early '90s lo-fi boom that gave us Beck and Guided By Voices, and stands as a landmark, classic album - while remaining as endearingly intimate as a love letter, or a stolen diary.

"I knew I was on the right track, when people said I was a 'pussy' for playing an acoustic guitar. I'd found my new passion: quiet was the new loud."
- Lou Barlow

"Along with Pavement's 'Slanted and Enchanted', 'Sebadoh III' is one of the cornerstones of '90s indie rock."
- All Music