Mold were three-fourths of Half A Chicken, a minor garage-rock group from the Lower East Side who had released Food For Thought (Rabid Cat), and two-fourths (guitarist Steve Scavuzzo and drummer Christy Davis) of the Barbie Complex, a girl-group brought to attention by the single Dead Rabbit/ Now (Fishfur). This was followed by a single, Weather/ Spill My Cp/ Spend (Tofu Hut, 1994), steeped in surrealist nonsense (trumpet, violin).

Their debut EP, Sonic Youth At Disneyworld (Funky Mushroom, 1994), openly made fun of a couple of sacred names of the underground (aside from the title-track, see Bob Mould Hates Me), but did not reveal much about the quartet’s actual music.

Equally enigmatic was the album Reject (Funky Mushroom, 1995): it’s unclear whether the Mold are the ones of Burn Me, an angry/disillusioned riot-grrrrl-style lament, or of Waiting For Phoebe To Die, a gritty Jefferson Airplane-style acid-rock piece, or of the lengthy instrumental jam Two Hands, which revives the glories of more “cosmic” raga-rock. As if that weren’t enough, the record teems with experimental interludes, also without any apparent purpose. In the end, the most affecting moments prevail—those in which Davis sings a very personal form of velvety psychedelic balladry: in the title track, and especially in the long Me. But What Is Fame and We're An Alternative Band (a parody of the Grand Funk Railroad classic) show that their real specialty is, decidedly, sarcastic meditations on the meaning (or meaninglessness) of the rock star.

Mold (Wagon Train, 1996) is a much more serious effort, that displays the band's propensity for hard-rocking ballads and, above all, Christy Davis' smoking vocals.