American Football
The house on 704 W. High St., Urbana, Illinois photographed for the now iconic album cover.
American Football
American Football
Released: September 14, 1999
Polyvinyl Records
Produced by Brendan Gamble
Possibly the best Midwest college rock album I’ve ever heard or ever will be and the reason is because it’s like an emo version of slowcore with occasional interesting math-rock rhythms and a rural summer quality. You can hear the screen door squeak open and close; you can feel the humid summer nights, and you can see the moths and bats circling the street lamps, and car tires on gravel.
15 years later I started to get into math rock and happened upon American Football’s debut album, a math rock classic.
To my ears, American Football is the never to be signed to a major label college bar band with never enough gigs but always schlepping their own equipment when there are ones.
In ways, it’s the promise of what began with R.E.M.’s legendary debut album, Murmur, and in terms of DIY low-budget college rock albums, you can hear continued in nearly every college/alternative rock band ever since, particularly jangle pop band sounds heard on American Football’s debut.
