12 Rods - Split Personalities (1998)

So here is an album that is simply made for the bummed out, really stoned, suburban teenager. 12 Rods, an indie rock band originally from Ohio, then settling in Minneapolis, MN creates a charming yet musically inclined and progressive sort of pop music with this great album released on V2 records in 1998- when you were more focused on doing bullshit third grade homework.

A lot of listeners may have heard their EP Gay? because it got a perfect ten or whatever on pitchfork media, but most people haven't had the fortune of hearing this wonderful indie rock album that just sort of got pushed aside.

Split Personalities mixes feelings of self-loathing and a dark sense of humor. The playful lyrics balance out perfectly with the warm and inviting pop guitar hooks. In the track I Wish You Were A Girl, imagining if their male comrade was a beautiful woman, and having a care-free relationship they sing, "Cause if you were a girl/Nothing would seem to matter/Cause if you were a girl/I wouldn't really care".

Another key track on the album Make-Out Music (also featured on the Gay? EP) , describes the feelings of hating the town one has grown up in, and feeling of bitterness and anger being trapped in a shithole causes. The bummed out yet climactic lyrics say, "I wish I didn't grow up in the town that I grew up in/Kept me silent/Kept me stupid/Never fought back/Never fought back".

All in all, this gem conveys a beautiful summer day, the (mis)adventures of youth, and the fear one has of being trapped in the same dull place for too long. 12 Rods is often compared to bands like XTC, but there are also elements of progressive bands such as Yes, Gentle Giant, or other indie pop bands of the era like The Dismemberment Plan.

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