ARTISTdirect.com review

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Album Review

Lost in the corporate shuffle after Island Records and Polygram suffered buyouts in the late '90s, Local H -- a duo comprised of guitarist Scott Lucas and drummer Joe Daniels -- seemed as good as dead when Daniels split the band. Following some regrouping, Lucas brought on drummer Brian St. Clair, formerly of Triple Fast Action, and began working up a new batch of songs. Though the songs are quite hooky, and Lucas' vocals are howlingly impassioned, there still seems to be a level of emotion missing from the songwriting. The hard-driving post-grunge power pop rings with tinges of Nirvana and Mudhoney. Too polished for punk, too thrashing for indie, Here Comes the Zoo was produced by Jack Douglas and mixed by Pearl Jam mixer Nick DiDia. Though the duo generally has no problem making enough noise on their own, they were supplemented on the CD by the likes of the Misfits' Jerry Only, The Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme, and St. Clair's former Triple Fast Action bandmate Wes Kidd.

-Jesse Jarnow, All Music Guide