Review Revue: The Grapes of Wrath - s/t EP

Welcome to Review Revue, where every Thursday I dig through the KEXP stacks to share DJ reviews and comments written on the covers of LPs (and occasionally CDs) in the ’80s and ’90s, when the station was called KCMU, the DJs were volunteers, and people shared their opinions on little white labels instead of the internet.

I think I speak for many Americans when I say that it's kind of embarrassing how ignorant I am of Canadian culture - in this case, specifically, music. I pulled this record off the shelves knowing nothing about it, only that it seemed to have at least a few comments on it. I picked it to write about today assuming it would be nigh-impossible to find any information on this incredibly obscure band with the difficult-to-Google name . . . and boy was I wrong! The Grapes of Wrath was - and remains - a well-regarded and popular Canadian rock band, with several releases on labels such as Capitol-EMI and Nettwerk. In fact, this very EP, the band's debut release, was, from what I can tell, the fourth record released by that storied label (previously mentioned in my recent piece on Moev, who represented the first two releases).