Camper Van Beethoven - II & III (40th Anniversary Edition)

Non-sensical, un-user friendly, at times half finished. Camper Van Beethoven’s second album, II & III, saw the folk-punk of the band’s debut LP morphing into an even wider melting pot of stylistic influences and (un)ironic contradictions, all rolled up into a coherently incoherent collection of some of the band’s most defining songs.

Originally released in 1986, the follow up to Telephone Free Landslide Victory did much to develop an already iconoclastic Camper Van Beethoven idiom. II & III ranges from alt-country ballads (“Sad Lovers’ Waltz”) to call-backs to the European folk instrumentals of the debut (“No Krugerrands For David”, “4 Year Plan”). Also featured is the band’s bluegrass-Americana take on Sonic Youth’s “I Love Her All the Time”, feeding their appetite for cover songs.

The deluxe double CD set brings together the original II & III album with a 17 track live album of material from Camper Van Beethoven shows supporting REM on their Life’s Rich Pageant tour. This audio was mostly recorded at the Lincoln, Nebraska show from October 10th, 1986, but is supplemented with audio from other shows of the tour.