Beaker (album)
Beaker is the second album by the American alternative rock band 22 Brides. It was released in 1995. The band supported the album by touring with Dick Dale. The first single was "Lullabye". A comic book, "22 Brides", inspired in part by the band and created by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti, was used to promote "Beaker" via a full-page ad in each issue. Production. The album was produced by Adam Lasus and band leaders/sisters Carrie and Libby Johnson, with additional production by J. Cox. Much of it was recorded using Lasus's analog equipment. Unlike  the band's debut, "Beaker" included a studio drummer and an additional studio guitarist/bassist; full-time band members were recruited after its completion. Critical reception. "Trouser Press" thought that "the graft of punky abandon to the trunk of folky preciousness doesn’t mesh strongly enough to make the second album more than moderately intriguing ... but experimental hybrids do have a way of sprouting strange flowers." The "Albuquerque Journal" praised the "straightforward pop sincerity that rocks accordingly ... No cutesy Veruca Salt beguilement or overly catchy riffs." "The State" deemed the album "a refreshing blast of energetic guitar pop, reminiscent of  The Bangles and The Pretenders." The "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" determined that "the melodies and execution frequently fall into pleasant genericism (and the slower stuff simply drags)." The "Austin American-Statesman" labeled the group a "Pretenders-meets-Nirvana quartet." Acknowledging the Indigo Girls comparisons resulting from the debut album, "Tulsa World" called the sisters "indie-go girls—all the guts without the cheap sentiment." "The Washington Post" opined that "though it's noteworthy for being livelier and more raucous than the band's self-titled debut, 22 Brides' "Beaker" reveals that [the] sibling singer-songwriters ... have gotten better at both  ballads and rockers." AllMusic wrote that "22 Brides add a raw, electric edge to Carrie and Libby Johnson's blissful sibling harmonies on their sophomore release."