(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Experimental ensemble from Ottawa (Canada), the Spiny Anteaters create chaotic collages of musical events. The group can play both folk ballads and dragging blues, but on record they like to mix their live performances in such a way that nothing feels complete or orderly. The songs on All Is Well (1994) and the title track of Current (Kranky, 1996) are exemplary of this methodical “waste” of rock opportunities. Good melodies and biting riffs are barely sketched before being abandoned, in a monstrous case of musical laziness. Many of the fragments could be “lo-fi” songs in the tradition of Guided By Voices or Sebadoh, as evidenced by the splendid singles Planet Mars (Baby Universe, 1995) and Mr Sun (Speed Kills).

Last Supper (Ba Da Bing, 1998) emphasizes eccentricity, unfolding high-class ideas in an even more laconic and self-sabotaging manner, such as What You Can't Say, with burning guitar distortion and Lou Reed–style undulating boogie, and Alt 23, an instrumental jam marked by solemn guitar drones and keyboard dissonances. Vikings is the most audacious cacophony, a live free-jazz improvisation.

Well Laid Plans (Ba Da Bing, 2001) offers a more organic view of their art. The twenty songs are more accomplished and better structured than anything they have done before. This is not necessarily a sign of genius, but in this case it is a sign of maturity. First of all, the band composes complex scores such as the seven-minute psychedelic/cosmic instrumental Sun Rise, that manages to fuse Sun Ra, Pink Floyd and Velvet Underground and the celestial Beautiful Loser. Secondly, the new approach reveals a non-trivial melodic talent, especially when augmented with power guitar (as in Apology), although the riffs are often borrowed from the classics (the one for Mining For Gold from Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde, the one for the instrumental Circle Of Sound from Rolling Stones's Street Fighting Man). On the down side, too many of these ballads indulge in the gently estranged tone of a Syd Barrett, cupled with discreet sound effects and folkish strumming. The trick works in Sailor Nation (thanks to a repetitive piano figure) but elsewhere simply drags.
Back to their goofy, amateurish style, the Spiny Anteater affectionately deliver the lunatic proto-Lou Reed dirge Metropolitan, the surreal novelty 1967 Dusty Bunny, the musique concrete of Saturday Night Pirates and tons of odd interludes (alas, no more than two minutes long when they could use an extra ten/twenty minutes to justify the oddity).