Ted Leo and the Pharmacists Album Recommendations

The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

[#] The Tyranny of Distance (2001)

An indie hootenanny in need of a remaster.

Reviewed June 12, 2024

A perpetually bubbling-under figure of the indie rock circuit, Ted Leo finally had a calling card of his own with The Tyranny of Distance in 2001. A wholly-unique mixture of punk-by-way-of-Celtic-rock and overly-literate indie, the appeal of Tyranny is obvious from about the second or third track. The band is fast, tight, the melodies are catchy, Ted's lyrics are sharp and evocative, his guitar lines are zippy and brash (remember, this guy had quite the rap sheet before the Pharmacists came into being), but it's tempered by the fact that somehow, the songs fall off dramatically post "Timorous Me". It's not that "Stove By a Whale" is bad—it's more that it's a sign of things to come, about two minutes too long, and nothing that follows after matches "Under the Hedge" in hooky-rabbit-guitar memorability.

Yes, it's the classic case of the first half besting the second. "Biomusicology" is the litmus test for if you'll get anything further out of Tyranny—Ted channels his inner poet in genuinely triumphant fashion, and the guitars are sharp and sheer like the best clean sound you could hope to get out of them, yet the mix is so treble-heavy, the siblance issues are apparent within the first twenty seconds. Classic 2000s mastering, clipped and whispery, definitely detract from the proceedings, but it's "Parallel or Together?"'s bitter, itchy stewing, "Dial Up"'s skittery drum lines and floaty falsettos, and "Timorous Me"'s Thin Lizzy-esque nostalgic storytelling (a tribute to those Ted barely knew before they exited his life) that salvage Tyranny's first half from the first or fifth listen. Beyond that, it's all a big YMMV from me.