- Source: El Moodio
El Moodio is an album by the American band Eleventh Dream Day, released in 1993. The band supported the album with a North American tour. It was Eleventh Dream Day's final album for Atlantic Records.
Production
Recorded in New York, the album was produced by Jim Rondinelli. Nine of its 10 songs were written by Janet Beveridge Bean and Rick Rizzo. Matthew O'Bannon joined as the second guitar player. The band started the album with Brad Wood, in Chicago, and also recorded songs that were released on 2013's New Moodio. Velvet Crush's Ric Menck played drums on "That's the Point".
Critical reception
Rolling Stone concluded that "the lion's share of the material reveals a knack for emotionally charged scenes, underscored by Bean's brusque drums," writing that "the root of great rock & roll isn't originality but spirit—and Eleventh Dream Day has passion to burn." The Washington Post determined that the album "still doesn't unite the band's influences—the Velvet Underground, Neil Young and the Dream Syndicate, to name just a few—into a distinctive whole." Greil Marcus, in Artforum, wrote that "on 'Rubber Band', singer/guitarist Rick Rizzo asks the musical question, How far can a phrase be stretched before every trace of the meaning it began with is gone?, and doesn't answer it."
USA Today praised "the shimmery harmonies, grabby melodies and guitar-rock intensity." The Calgary Herald called the album "outsider rock that doesn't try to overthrow the system, that just wants to hang on and hope—and rock with a controlled rage." The Gazette opined that "when Rizzo and Matthew O'Bannon's guitars work alchemy in the ballads, the band approaches grandeur." The Virginian-Pilot deemed El Moodio "an album of moody, nervous guitars and edgy singing."