Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Orange

"...With second guitarist Judah Bauer and drummer Russell Simins...[Spencer] wails fractured postmodern bluesoid stuff that's as weird, fun and spooky as original blues-dripping rockabilly."
"...New Yorker Spencer and his two bandmates jam like it's blues night in the psych ward....The resulting cross between rock and insanity can be thrilling in its fervency..."
- Rating: B
3 Stars - Good - "...Blues Explosion manage to work on entertaining, lurching variations on the power trio format with Spencer himself exhibiting a hectoring deference to both Mark E. Smith and Jerry Lee Lewis..."
"...ORANGE is an ambitious, well-executed release that shows growth while still shaking some action..."
"...the third official Blues Explosion album peppers its scrungy, bar-based blues with funk, rockabilly, disco, Stax soul, several Elvis shudders, a bit o'white noise, and Beck's infamous phoned-in guest rap....More importantly, it works..."
Village Voice (2/28/95) - Ranked #16 in the Village Voice's 1994 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll.
Billboard (p.36) - "Fast, punky and laced with nods to the sounds of the '70s..."
Ranked #68 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "Beefheart, Stax, James Brown: all get stomped under the Cuban heel of Russell Simins' monster beat."
4 stars out of 5 -- "ORANGE was the blues as heard from the streets of Manhattan, post-Public Enemy, punk rock and all that other New York noise."
Ranked #16 in NME's list of the 'Top 50 Albums Of 1994.'
Pitchfork (Website) - "The Blues Explosion were honest, organic experimenters -- fusing tons of different styles into their musical assault without compromising their ferocity or making any of it sound forced."
4 stars out of 5 -- "[The] balance of rough with smooth, the comic with the deadly serious, was perfect."