Quebec by Ween

Quebec, Ween's eighth studio album, came out on Sanctuary on August 5, 2003, the first record after their Elektra deal ran out and a return to the indie world. Gene and Dean Ween, the New Hope, Pennsylvania, duo of Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo, made it during a rough stretch in their personal lives, and Dean himself called it a very negative album. You can hear it: the usual genre-hopping pranks are still here, but the mood is darker, murkier and more haunted than anything they'd done before.

There was trouble behind the kit too. Drummer Claude Coleman Jr. was recovering from a car accident that nearly killed him, so Josh Freese sat in on the album and on the road, including benefit shows for Coleman at the Bowery Ballroom in New York. "Transdermal Celebration" is the standout, a big, woozy psychedelic charge. Even the sleeve is a joke: it borrows its look from the box of Thorns, one of 3M's old paper games.

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