The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @just_takes for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks!

Most people who are lucky enough to have heard Speed the Plough or their preceding project the Trypes are likely to know them first of all as a “Feelies side project.” Maybe there’s a casual listen and some misguided disappointment that their delicate yet powerful folk-rock isn’t another Crazy Rhythms. Perhaps they haven’t even gone to the effort to seek out their recordings, or maybe they just see a bunch of middle-aged people from New Jersey and turn around. Those of us who take the effort are rewarded with some of the best music ever made, but we’re not even the lucky ones.

It’s the people who cross paths with those middle-aged people from New Jersey (and their kids) elsewhere of whom I am envious. Maybe STP is their band teacher’s “little band” who are “actually pretty good.” Maybe they just went out to Tierney’s in Montclair one time and the live music was a lot better than they were expecting. Maybe they just spent an afternoon in Hoboken and found them playing on a closed city street and have spent years trying to remember who they were.

Regardless of where they’re coming from though, no one is prepared to hear Speed the Plough, especially their masterpiece Wonder Wheel. Featuring both the Feelies rhythm section and co-leader Bill Million behind the board, “Aeroplane” - as its title suggests starts the album right above the clouds and quickly combines three-part harmonies, woodwinds, Fripp-like guitar leads, and driving piano into a sound reminiscent of the most otherworldly British folk but right here, right now, and as far from fantasy as possible.

It never slows down from there, splicing fireside folk jams with post-punk tension and mellow psychedelic bliss. Like all the best psych-folk, it keeps its feet grounded in the autumnal land with its head in the cosmos and its heart in its years of the human experience. Even as it barrels from the woods, onto a speeding train to the city, and floats up to the night sky, it never leaves the uneasy yet surprisingly gorgeous world of Haledon, NJ and why should it? Like that warm pub on a cold night, or that time the right people came together at the right time and made that perfect sound, something as special as Wonder Wheel should not be so easy to find. Just be glad it came your way and try your hardest to remember what you can.

-- @just_takes