Log Press - Summer '04

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Magnet (August/Sept. 04)

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/reviews/revlog.html

There's a spiritual connection between Log and Guided By Voices, and it isn't just that both combos hail from Ohio. As with Bob Pollard's floating crap game, the voice of experience resonates deeply from within Log, a Columbus band whose previous album, Auto Fire Life , came and went back in 1999. Led by singer Paul Nini, his brother Chris on keyboards and the ringing guitar of Keith Dimoff, the Log people have jobs, kids and better things to do than beat their heads against the indie-rock wall. Drummer Greg Bonnell has been around long enough to have worked in the Naked Skinnies, Mark Eitzel's pre-American Music Club outfit. "Hollywood Years" plays Log's best feature (Paul's weary, tear-stained voice) off a rousing Stax/Volt-style horn section, while "That's All" spotlights Dimoff's jagged, Buzzcocks-like guitar. Bassist Shirley Tobias sings lead on "The End Of Print," a brisk, Americanized parody of the Kinks' "Village Green Preservation Society" ("God save scandal sheets, movie stars in magazines"). It's pretty clear these grizzled vets are making records more than 10 years into their band's lifeline because-like their musical gurus the Go-Betweens-they have no other choice. [Anyway, www.anyway-records.com]
(Jud Cost)

Philadelphia Weekly

Ohio State University professor Paul Nini is a mere footnote in the history of indie rock, having played in the Great Plains in the '80s before leading Log for a sporadic batch of releases (compiled on The Early Years ) the next decade. Co-released by Nini's own Old 3C label, Log Almighty may still be too obscure to reach many people, which would be a real shame. A minute into the opening "Hollywood Years," horns, keyboards and backing vocals are already dancing around Nini's rumbling, sometimes deadpan delivery. All punchy sing-alongs, folky nonchalance and rough-hewn embellishment, the album feels like buried treasure. (Doug Wallen)

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/article.asp?ArtID=7330

Sponiczine

The last couple times I've been in Columbus I couldn't help but be struck by how much it has changed in the last decade. Absent Stache's and Monkey's Retreat, north campus is a mere shadow of its former, glorious self. The bittersweet squalor of south campus has been completely razed in favor of some plastic bullshit from Campus Partners. You can't even buy Stroh's Dark at Bernie's anymore, evidently it's no longer brewed.

Not everything has changed, though, at least if Log Almighty is anything to go by. Log's still at it, and their new offering on Anyway is as lo-fi as anything recorded back in the, "Is Columbus the next Seattle?" heyday of the early '90s, Pro Tools be damned. And the musical territory is familiar, whiny, piney, dirge-like Americana descended from the like of Dylan, Roger & Gram's Byrds, the ubiquitous Velvets, pre-suck REM, etc. The pretty but ponderous "All the Sheep Are Slain/Favorite Compromise" even boasts an inaudible contribution from Marcy Mays and a guitar solo from Jerry Dannemiller.

If that sounds a little harsh, it's supposed to. But let me temper that a bit, because there's a lot that I do like about the record: Chris Nini's keyboards add a nice tone color, as do Paul Nini's "faux strings." Shirley Tobias sings well, especially in a back-up role.

It's just that there isn't a whole lot of original music being made here. I mean, it's easy to write a well-crafted pop tune if you are nicking riffs straight-up from "Knocking on Heaven's Door" and the like. And even that's not all bad - the cleverest track on the CD is "The End of Print," a winking, timely update of the Kink's Village Green Preservation Society - it's just a bit wearing, especially given the muddy sound. The album clocks in at a standard 45 minutes or so, but seems longer.
(Ted Kane)

http://www.sponiczine.com/review_detail.asp?wfArtist=Log

Splendidzine (5.20.04)

Log coast on pure likability. Made up of self-professed "older Ohioans" with families and sturdy careers, this Columbus band isn't out to invent a new sound or challenge your conception of rock music. They just want to get together and make mild jangle-pop when their packed schedules allow it. This "aw, shucks" Midwestern humility is Log Almighty's charm as well as its failing. Too polite to reach out and grab your attention, the album floats by in a blah one-note fog. Singer and guitarist Paul Nini used to play in The Great Plains, but nothing on Log Almighty brushes the wry greatness of classics like "Letter to a Fanzine". Channeling late Feelies and Wake Ooloo, as well as more recent bands like Poole, Nini's songs are long on jangle and pastoral breeziness but fatally short on memorable melody. There are a few keepers, like the upbeat "Clean Hands" and the seamlessly sprawling two-parter "All the Sheep are Slain/Favorite Compromise", but they're outweighed by mediocrity like the cowbell-plagued "On My Way Back Home" and the unfunny "The End of Print". Unless you're some psycho Columbus music completist, you'll be better off searching out the excellent Great Plains compilation Length of Growth.
(Justin Stewart)

http://www.splendidezine.com/review.html?reviewid=1084030575658101

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