Archers of Loaf

Kids are still lamenting the loss of the Loaf, and some will collect themselves for long enough to pick up a copy of this live recording from the Cradle in Chapel Hill, NC, taped late in 1998, just before the band decided to call it quits for good. Seconds Before The Accident is basically a greatest hits record, except for the sad omission of their greatest song, "Harnessed in Slums," but each song has been stripped of the things that originally made it great. The lifeless songs prophesise what was to come for the band and this is without a doubt the saddest record the Archers have given their fans, and this may have been their intention. "Vocal Shrapnel" and "Let the Loser Melt" have none of the emotion that made Vee Vee so appealing to young indie rockers six years ago. "Web in Front" and "Wrong" make me think that it might be a cover band doing the songs, and not the Loaf I worshipped when I first heard Icky Mettle. Seconds Before the Accident is no way to judge this influential band, who left a legacy with those two early albums, as well as the vs. The Greatest of All Time EP, but tumbled for years thereafter until their eventual demise. By the sounds of this record, the break-up came a little too late.