This was the last album I hadn't heard by these guys. Tantilla & Cakewalk are two of my favorite albums in the whole world, and I was hoping this one would be at least half as good. Wow, it isn't. It's badly recorded bad songs with bad lyrics. I'm sure these songs meant something to those who were involved with producing it, but not to me. It sounds like drunk people making crummy songs. This was the best they could come up with? It makes me sad to know this is all there will be. Check out Tantilla & Cakewalk -- they are great works. RIP Bryan.
In 2002, Elvis Costello released the album "When I Was Cruel", which was his stab at remaining somewhat relevant to younger music listeners. More importantly for this review, he referred to it as a "rowdy rhythm record".
Seven years earlier, House of Freaks released their own rowdy rhythm record, as well as their final outing, "Invisible Jewel". Given the rough-around-the-edges production on this disc, maybe a more apt way to describe it would be to refer to it as HoF's "White Album".
Fans of polished, gleaming pop production values won't care for this disc as there is almost none of that to be found. Instead, much of the disc seems to have a one-take feel to it. Sometimes HoF pulls it off, but much of the time the results are mixed. The album seems to suffer a bit from the grunge, navel-gazer mentality that was prevalent during that period of the 90's, an era that produced little in the way of truly memorable music. That isn't to say it is a grunge album, but rather that some of those elements are present, mostly not in a good way.
But in the end, it is still Bryan Harvey and Johnny Hott most likely doing what they felt like doing and not really worrying about what people thought of the recording. Some of the songs do possess hooks that were in abundance on their first three full-length albums, but on IJ are mostly fleeting.
For the first seven songs, the disc holds up fairly well, with personal highlights being "Reverberocket", "My Lucky Day", and the three-song sequence of "Lonely", "It's a F-ed Up World", and "She Wore Red". Of the final seven songs on the disc, though, the only two that stuck in my head were "Stupid Things" and "Whipping Boy". "Fat Boy Tom" is a drum workout by Hott which I enjoy, but most people will skip it. One song in particular, "Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey", is disturbing in light of how Harvey (and his family) met his end - this one I definitely skip, although technically it isn't a bad tune.
So, to sum up, if you are looking to get into HoF's music - definitely a worthy endeavor - "Invisible Jewel" is NOT the place to start. If, after listening to their other recorded output you become hooked on the band, then it is probably worth picking up this disc for at least some of the songs. Not a brilliant disc, to be sure, but still one worth having in your collection, IMO.