An art major with penchants for Sonic Youth and nurse costumes, Daniel Smith rounded up some kin and kith and recorded arguably the most divisive and willfully experimental (i.e., non-commercial?) album ever to receive major Christian market distribution. Even in alt rock’s ’90s commercial heyday, Danielson’s originally self-titled debut was more alt than most. The rest of the indieground may have had foreshadowings of Smith’s androgynous vocal screech and crazyquilt aural eccentricity in acts such as Half Japanese, Jandek and Ween. Even those aesthetic extremists, however, didn’t wed their weirdness to an earnestly declamatory biblical morality that left room for both vulnerable confessions and non-sequiturs delivered with childlike naivete. Smith’s visual sense was something altogether different, too. Think “lysergically bucolic” and wonder why the front liner’s pictured clock looks like an amoeba with a balloon where the DNA might be.
Danielson Familie would go on to record more accessible, if equally quirky, work, but there’s nothing like the shock of A Prayer For Every Hour’s new and nigh uncatagorizable sounds to make a fan of hard (as in difficult) rock say, “What th’...hey!” Music so seldom elicits as much amazement, aggravation, ennui and devotion as this Prayer.
Other coverage for this album
The Lighthouse December 1995Reviewed by Todd BrownThis disc, without a doubt, is going to inspire an intense love/hate reaction from listeners. There will be no middle ground. You will either love it, or you will loathe it. Most will probably land on the loathe side. I don't. Dan Smith, aka Danielson, could become a do-it-yourself legend. The entire album was recorded on a four-track in his basement with his family backing him up-with most songs…Similar sounding releases
2002The Baptist GeneralsNo Silver/No Gold
1999Half-Handed CloudLearning About Your Scale
2002Tall DwarfsThe Sky Above, The Mud Below
2004Damien JuradoThis Fabulous Century
2004NirvanaWith the Lights Out
2003Static FilmsForce Over DistanceMore from Danielson
2000Tri-Danielson!!! (Omega)
2004Brother Is to Son
2001Fetch the Compass Kids
1997Tell Another Joke at the Ol' Choppin' Block
1998Tri-Danielson!!! (Alpha)
