With hooks as gleaming as the stars shooting off of Wonder Woman's teeth, Veruca Salt powers past Breeders comparisons which are on track, but only halfway there. Instead of the Breeders' surf rock noodling, Veruca Salt dish up straight ahead riffs and meatier, more thought-out solos. Their songs seem a tad more focused, even mean. With lyrics about killing people, and bubbling withrage befitting of Roald Dahl's covetous brat, AMERICAN THIGHS sounds more like the bully compared to the Breeders' pothead road trip, chock full of tongue-in-cheek wordplay. "Number One Blind" praises the virtues of Levelor blinds, "Levelor, which of us is blind?/Levelor left me in the dark." And when they sing about "Spiderman," we relive their comic book childhood right along with them.

AMERICAN THIGHS shows a band with obvious potential, one with an impressive grasp of a rock guitar dynamic which does not cloud their freshness or their indie rock charm.

All hail them.
I remember when "Veruca Salt" came out, they had alot of hype around them. This album justified it. The success came from well crafted alt-rock songs, catchy and grungy, and great harmonizing between the two girls. Maybe not perfect, but it was a good combination. I saw them open for "Hole" once, and "VS" blew them away. The big hit here is "Seether", and while some tracks rock like that, others show the softer side of the band. I think every song here is good, especially "All Hail Me" and "Twinstar". I'm not sure if they're still a band, and I know they had other albums, but I suspect this will always be their best.

Highly Underrated
I'm going back through my collections and I've hit the Salt mine. ;)

Where to begin with this? Every song is good. The girls have a knack for hauntingly mixing melodies and harmonies in layers that weave back and forth, and the songwriting runs the gamut from softly whispered to right-out-rocking, but it never loses its grit or its edge. This is a remnant of the effectively dead Chicago grunge scene in the mid-90's, and it lives up to that classification heartily. Crunching guitar riffs with huge distortions and electified, simple solos with the picks screeching along the metal.

Yet the most compelling aspect of this record is the evocative sadness that pervades much of it. There's a sense of nostalgia present, and it's not a derivative of the record's age. It's present in the songs themselves; songs such as "Fly" and "Celebrate You", "Wolf", "25" and "Sleeping Where I Want" are catchy yet suppressively dark at the same time. Ultimately, these will be the tunes that keep this record from falling into obscurity behind the rest of your collection.

The lead single "Seether" is of course the most recognizable to anyone over the age of 24; but the ferocious opening rocker "All Hail Me" will catch the attention and get things going, and the haunting, dark "Spiderman '79" will solidify Veruca Salt in the mind of the listener. The only song on the album which sounds out of place is the copycat "Forsythia," which, while certainly having catchy drum and bass lines, just seems a tad too contrived in comparison to the other songs.

I F--CKING LOVE VERUCA SALT
Obviously, I love everything about Veruca Salt that everyone has already mentioned 10 thousand times. But I am surprised no one has mentioned anything about Veruca Salt having 2 lead vocalists. Nina and Louise trade powerful lead vocals throughtout this album which surprises the listener, gives the album variation, and makes every song different from the others. And then the harmonies...never have I heard such powerful harmonies in a rock song. Usually, back-up vocals are kept basic not to "outshine" the lead vocalist, or are solely in the chorus. But Nina & Louise definetly share the mic.(A good example of their powerful harmonizing would be in the song "Wolf", my favorite song on the album!) To me, this is what makes them original and sets them apart from, well, EVERYONE.

If you are a die-hard fan and want to have a Veruca chat email me at socalnessa@hotmail.com. I am truely obsessed!

LARGE AMOUNTS OF UNFULFILLED POTENTIAL
Way back when--as the saying goes--I got to see Veruca Salt play live (and meet the ladies) a couple of months before the video (and consequently the album) broke onto the "American Musical Consciousness).

I was blown away by them on stage. Untainted by fame or notoriety, this band was a force of nature. These two rather diminutive ladies could rock!

I met both Louise and Nina after the performance. Both were very engaging and I had an interesting conversation with Nina (who also drew a nice snail for me).

Then I heard the album.

For some reason it did not capture the elemental power of the band. The lyrics are somewhat easier to hear in the more smoothly produced studio versions, but they are a good deal less effective in their neutered form.

The videos that followed gave the band a boost, but although the album is strong, I don't think it was solid enough to withstand the band's flirtation with the microscope of fame.

I have no idea whatever happened to this band. I only felt moved to review this album when Amazon's purchase engine suggested it to me. All the same--in their time Veruca Salt was one of the best live acts that I've ever seen. They are worthy of remembering, even if the album isn't.