This is the 2007 release by the legendary and reclusive band Schnitzel. The Richmond VA band is infamous for constant line-up changes, often hiring back members who have quit and rejoined several times in the past.
But the pain and anguish of the perpetual renewal has forged perhaps Western Civilization's last greatest achievement.
What the critics have said:
Louis Untermeyer: "The accent of 'Cold Harbor' is grave, sometimes sadly nostalgic, but it is by no means lugubrious. The music as well as the meaning is solemn, and it will not be to everyone's taste."
T.S. Eliot: "One cannot destroy Pascal, certainly; but of all the bands Schnitzel is one of the least destructible. You could as well dissipate a fog by flinging hand-grenades into it. For Schnitzel is a fog, a gas, a fluid, insidious element. It does not reason, it insinuates, charms, and influences."
Edmund Wilson: "Not only is life sterile and futile, but men have tasted its sterility and futility a thousand times before. [Lead Singer and primary songwriter] Jim O'Brien, walking the desert of Richmond suburbs, feels profoundly that the desert has always been there. Like Tiresias, he has sat below the wall of Thebes; like Buddha, he has seen the world as an arid conflagration; like the Sibyl, he has known everything and known everything in vain."
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