Jazz-school drums, Brian Wilson melodies, Jellyfish prog, Minus the Bear math—inside the ambitious early‑2000s album that never found a home but found diehards.
Awesome review of a great album (haven't listened to the podcast yet, just read the review!). I appreciate that even in 2026 this 2002 album is being given its flowers, especially considering how underrated 12 Rods is as a band overall. It's strange to say that a band is underrated after they received that infamous and rare 10.0 from Pitchfork. Although that was the early days of Pitchfork there's no doubt that single rating exposed a lot of people to this band. And yet this is a band that very much maintains a cult status. For me, their albums Split Personalities and Lost Time, and the EP gay? need to be talked about in the same breath as the great indie rock albums of the 90s and early 2000s that are perennially discussed, and it's a shame they are not. The musical quality on these 12 Rods records far exceed so many of their contemporaries, who ended up receiving so much more recognition than 12 Rods. As far as this album goes, I have been transcribing a few of the songs including Fake Magic 8-Ball, Twenty Four Hours Ago, Summertime Vertigo, and Terrible Hands, and harmonically these songs are just fantastic. Sometimes it's not clear to me from the album packaging who the main songwriter is, but I assume it is Ryan Olcott, and jesus dude I am reminded of Bob Dylan's quote about Brian Wilson, which I roughly paraphrase here: "Someone tell this man to will his ear to the Smithsonian!". So much great and enjoyable writing. I hope more people listen to this music in the future. Thank you for covering it.
Awesome review of a great album (haven't listened to the podcast yet, just read the review!). I appreciate that even in 2026 this 2002 album is being given its flowers, especially considering how underrated 12 Rods is as a band overall. It's strange to say that a band is underrated after they received that infamous and rare 10.0 from Pitchfork. Although that was the early days of Pitchfork there's no doubt that single rating exposed a lot of people to this band. And yet this is a band that very much maintains a cult status. For me, their albums Split Personalities and Lost Time, and the EP gay? need to be talked about in the same breath as the great indie rock albums of the 90s and early 2000s that are perennially discussed, and it's a shame they are not. The musical quality on these 12 Rods records far exceed so many of their contemporaries, who ended up receiving so much more recognition than 12 Rods. As far as this album goes, I have been transcribing a few of the songs including Fake Magic 8-Ball, Twenty Four Hours Ago, Summertime Vertigo, and Terrible Hands, and harmonically these songs are just fantastic. Sometimes it's not clear to me from the album packaging who the main songwriter is, but I assume it is Ryan Olcott, and jesus dude I am reminded of Bob Dylan's quote about Brian Wilson, which I roughly paraphrase here: "Someone tell this man to will his ear to the Smithsonian!". So much great and enjoyable writing. I hope more people listen to this music in the future. Thank you for covering it.