Polvo Polvo Black Vinyl Edition

Check out the first 18 or so seconds of "Can I Ride," the title trackon the first release by Polvo, the two-guitar juggernaut thatrepresented the other side of Chapel Hill indie rock (more on that ina moment). That two-note riff, and the guitar twang that follows,recalls the opening notes on another monster song: "The Sprawl," akey track on Sonic Youth's epochal Daydream Nation, an albumreleased in October 1988, less than two years before Polvo formed.This compilation's nine tunes_the first seven from the Can I Ridedouble 7-inch EP (1990), the last two from the "Vibracobra" b/w"The Drill" 7-inch (1991)_are not quite the sound of a torch beingpassed, but they were a sign that Sonic Youth's weird tunings, thehardcore punk and proto-indie rock on SST Records, and R.E.M.'shazy rock (three big influences on this era of Polvo) were changinglives.Even back then, the impossibly catchy roar from Merge's flagshipact Superchunk was known to outsiders as the sound of Chapel Hill.But Polvo was something different from the same region. While theband never cottoned to the "math rock" tag (and it's hard to disagreewith them), there is no question that there was a distinct "how canwe make guitar rock sound different from all the other guitar rock"vibe going on in the mid-Atlantic, from Richmond (math rock's truehome, don't @ me) to the North Carolina Triangle over to Louisvilleand down almost to Atlanta. (If the Mastodon dudes aren't downwith Polvo, I'll eat your shoe.)No, Polvo were their own brand of squall, not afraid of big hooks("Leaf "), odd tempos and textures ("Lull") and rolling thunder ("Totemic"), and answers to the musical question, "What if the Feeliesgrew up on Dinosaur Jr.?" ("Tread on Me").Indie rock? Not the 2019 kind. Math rock? Eh, not really. This wasthe sound of a new Southern rock, of a pre-internet g