Harmacy

Harmacy
Studio album by Sebadoh
Released	August 20, 1996
Genre	Indie rock
Length	50:12
Label	Sub Pop (USA) Domino (UK) City Slang (Germany) Fellaheen (Australia)
Producer	Wally Gagel, Bryce Goggin, Eric Masunaga, Tim O'Heir
Sebadoh chronology
Bakesale (1994) Harmacy (1996) The Sebadoh (1999)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
Robert Christgau	A−[2]
Pitchfork Media	(8.9)[3]
Rolling Stone	[4]

Harmacy is the sixth album by American indie rock band Sebadoh. It was released by Sub Pop in 1996.

It is the second and final Sebadoh album to feature drummer Bob Fay, who replaced founding member Eric Gaffney in 1994.

The album cover features a photograph of a pharmacy in Cashel, Ireland, taken by band member Jason Loewenstein on tour. The missing "P" gave the album its title.^[5]

Music

As with its predecessor, Bakesale, the songwriting on Harmacy was handled primarily by Loewenstein and founding member Lou Barlow, with Fay contributing the lone track, "Sforzando!," and the band covering "I Smell a Rat" by American hard rock band The Bags. Their cover was featured on the soundtrack for the 1998 American comedy-thriller film Homegrown.^[6]

Like Bakesale, the album found Sebadoh flirting "with (relatively) polished production",^[7] as well as a pervasive use of electric guitars and longer song structures, marking a clear departure from the band's lo-fi, often acoustic earlier albums like their landmark release, Sebadoh III (1991).

Reception

Released in the wake of Barlow's Top 40 hit, "Natural One," with his band Folk Implosion, Harmacy became Sebadoh's first charting album in the U.S., expanding on the success of Bakesale,^[7] and yielding the Modern Rock Tracks hit, "Ocean."

The album was well received by critics, albeit less so than Bakesale. Stephen Thompson of The Onion's A.V. Club wrote that Harmacy "doesn't have Bakesale's considerable staying power as a whole, but the strong balance of soft pop songs ("Too Pure," "Perfect Way," the elegant pop ballad "Willing to Wait") and abrasively punky rock songs ("Love To Fight," "Mind Reader," "Can't Give Up") still holds together somehow." ^[8]

Harmacy was included on several year-end lists in 1996, including Rolling Stone's "Ten Best Albums" (#8), the Village Voice's "Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll" (#36), and the NME's critics' poll (#38).

Reissue

The album was supposed to be reissued in 2011, along with Bakesale, but never was. In a 2012 interview with blurredvisionary, Barlow explained "they wanted me to [reissue Harmacy] and I absolutely don’t want to pursue it at all. I just can’t get excited about that record...I think anyone can find it and I don’t know how we could improve upon it unless we included the b-sides from that time, but the b-sides we did from that time I don’t know they were that great." ^[9]

Track listing

1. "On Fire" (Barlow) – 3:36
2. "Prince-S" (Loewenstein) – 2:52
3. "Ocean" (Barlow) – 2:46
4. "Nothing Like You" (Loewenstein) – 3:09
5. "Crystal Gypsy" (Loewenstein) – 1:29
6. "Beauty of the Ride" (Barlow) – 2:48
7. "Mind Reader" (Loewenstein) – 1:50
8. "Sforzando!" (Fay) – 3:30
9. "Willing to Wait" (Barlow) – 3:32
10. "Hillbilly II" (Loewenstein) – 1:59
11. "Zone Doubt" (Loewenstein) – 2:18
12. "Too Pure" (Barlow) – 3:46
13. "Worst Thing" (Loewenstein) – 2:55
14. "Love to Fight" (Loewenstein) – 0:54
15. "Perfect Way" (Barlow) – 2:49
16. "Can't Give Up" (Loewenstein) – 2:02
17. "Open Ended" (Barlow) – 3:28
18. "Weed Against Speed" (Barlow) – 2:55
19. "I Smell a Rat" (Hardy, Janota, Wood) – 1:34

Personnel

• Lou Barlow - Vocals, Guitar, Bass
• Jason Loewenstein - Vocals, Bass, Guitar, Photography
• Bob Fay - Drums, Bass, Vocals

Additional personnel

• Mark Perretta - Guitar, Bass
• Wally Gagel - Engineer, Mixing
• Eric Masunaga - Engineer, Mixing
• Tim O'Heir - Engineer, Mixing
• Bryce Goggin - Mixing
• Charles Peterson - Photography

Album charts

Charting singles

1. ↑ Thomas, Stephen (1996-08-20). "Harmacy - Sebadoh". AllMusic. Retrieved 2011-09-30. 
2. ↑ "CG: sebadoh". Robert Christgau. Retrieved 2011-09-30. 
3. ↑ "Internet Archive Wayback Machine". Web.archive.org. 2003-04-03. Retrieved 2011-09-30. 
4. ↑ 9/5/96
5. ↑ "Michael Stutz: Lou Barlow interview". Sebadoh.com. Retrieved 2011-09-30. 
6. ↑ "The SoundtrackInfoProject: Homegrown (1998)". 
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 http://www.allmusic.com/artist/sebadoh-p14199/biography
8. ↑ Thompson, Stephen (2002-03-29). "Sebadoh: Harmacy | Music | Music Review". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 2011-09-30. 
9. ↑ https://blurredvisionary.wordpress.com/tag/bubble-and-scrape/