On paper, Chagall Guevara were an absurd proposition: Start with five musicians in their mid-thirties who were already years deep into reasonably profitable music careers. Have them junk those careers completely and cram into a van to play remote clubs in the American South, subsisting on convenience store snacks and scraping together their per diems to pay the bills and buy the occasional cheap gift for their wives and children. (Did I not mention their wives and children? They have wives and children.) Appoint an absentee manager, fire the promotions staff of their record company, and have them try to break into the mainstream almost a year before “Smells Like Teen Spirit” made alt rock the lingua franca of American radio. Oh, and also: Give them a band name that no one can pronounce. Critics took note: A glowing, three-and-a-half-star review in Rolling Stone raved, “Not since the Clash has a group so effectively turned militant discontent into passionate rock & roll.” And while the band didn’t scale the heights of rock stardom to which it seemed they were destined, what’s striking now, thirty years later, is how prescient the record seems. — J. Edward Keyes, December 2021