Neutral Milk Hotel

Neutral Milk Hotel is the sporadically used public persona of frontman Jeff Mangum, who was aligned through childhood friendships with the likes of Apples In Stereo's Robert Schneider and Olivia Tremor Control's Will Cullen-Hart with Athens, Ga.'s Elephant Six Recording Company.

After a handful of obscure singles releases, NMH released a stunner of a debut, On Avery Island, in 1996. The injured acoustic fuzz-rock that populated the record presented a unique musical and lyrical world, but could not accurately presage Mangum & co.'s magnum opus, the incomparable sophomore LP In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. Aeroplane lyrically drew upon such touchstones as "The Diary Of Anne Frank" and the Jewish holocaust to weave a worldview through multifarious references to sex, death and innocence spread within the cryptic wordscape. 11 songs, all in the same key, led listeners on a sonic journey bookended with the 3-part "King Of Carrot Flowers" suite.

As of this writing, Mangum and NMH have yet to follow up Aeroplane, releasing only a collection of solo live recordings by Mangum. This is understandable, as the album may never find its equal in the realm of modern music.

Album reviews

In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (Recommended)
Merge (1998)
Neutral Milk Hotel's second album is a tour-de-force of emotive music.

On Avery Island
Merge (1996)
Neutral Milk Hotel's first album is refreshing rock music that doesn't emulate the increasingly stale state of mainstream radio in the mid-'90s.