This came out in 2000 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
For a while there, it seemed like Hugh Dillon had gone Hollywood.
But despite a string of acting roles in indie pix such as Dance Me Outside and Hard Core Logo — which led to an audition for the cop role in Jackie Brown — the head ‘Stone maintains music is his first love. And if the off-the-cuff immediacy and raw, rough-and-tumble rock of his outfit’s fourth disc is any proof, I’m inclined to take him at his word. Make no mistake: It seems the three years away from the stage have reinvigorated Hugh. Nickels’ 14 cuts simmer with the garage-band grit and spit and the punky, chunky guitar riffs of the other Stones’ classic album Some Girls, from the driving urban squall of opener Downtown, and the breezy, midtempo guitar-and-harmonica ballads like Exhausted to the celebrity-skewering jangle of Above Ground Swimming Pools. Here and there, some beatboxes and loops lend a modern-rock edge to Dillon’s razor-blade style, but generally these tracks have a first-take feel and an unvarnished spontaneity (especially the improvised Brechtian skank of the title-track jam) that only adds to their appeal. Hollywood’s loss is our gain.
