Wiki
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Release Date
20 March 1994
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Length
9 tracks
New Plastic Ideas is the second studio album by the American post-hardcore band Unwound, released on March 21, 1994 by Kill Rock Stars. The album was recorded in between from November 26–28 and December 13, 1993 at Avast! Studios in Seattle, Washington. As pointed out in The Vinyl Factory's review for the album, New Plastic Ideas is a somewhat a step away from the feedback-ridden sound of its predecessor Fake Train and focuses more on melody and odd time signatures, although the band has stated that this was unintentional.
The album's title was once thought of a reference to the artist Piet Mondrian, however as explained by guitarist Justin Trosper, the name was simply made up on the spot.
The album was released on March 21, 1994 through independent label Kill Rock Stars, their second full-length for the label. The album was issued on compact disc, vinyl, and cassette formats, and the front cover photo is taken from the Philippe Entremont record Grieg: Concerto in A Minor for Piano and Orchestra. After being out-of-print for years, the album was made available on LP format again when it was included (with Fake Train) on the band's 2014 boxset Rat Conspiracy.
Much like its predecessor, the album received a lot of critical attention upon its release through the 2014 box-set Rat Conspiracy. Pitchfork noted "a huge leap in articulation here, both in gesture and enunciation, from Fake Train." The song "Envelope" was called "one of Unwound’s most indelible songs, a study in inverted, charred-hearted near-pop—melody morphs into menace and is never resolved" while "Abstraktions" "veers down a harrowing, Side-Two-of-Joy-Division’s-Closer corridor." The review by writing that both it and its predecessor "hold important places in the history of 90s music, not to mention those of punk and indie as a whole." Delusions of Adequacy called it "a catalog highlight (…) one of the band's very best albums", singling out "All Soul's Day" as "one of the most punishing moments in the Unwound repertoire."Popmatters called it "a furious classic of a record. They addressed the frustration and isolation that so many indie bands of their ilk addressed, but few could transmogrify those feelings into a sound this crafted yet unruly, into a sound that could vacillate between the claustrophobia of being lonely and the sometimes scary open space of being alone." Treble rated the album an 8.9 out of 10, writing that " (t)here are four major factors here: Raw emotion, tidal waves of noise, head-banging hooks, and trippy instrumental transitions. It sounds like a lot to work with, but Unwound packs it in, graciously."
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