III

III (or Sebadoh III) is the third album by the American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Homestead Records in 1991.

III was the first full length Sebadoh album to feature Jason Loewenstein, who joined the band’s two founding members Lou Barlow and Eric Gaffney in 1989, and debuted on the “Gimme Indie Rock” single earlier that year.

III features songwriting contributions from all three band members, with folky, melodic material by Barlow, noisy hardcore rock by Gaffney, and songs that bridged the gap between those extremes by Loewenstein. It opens with the electric Barlow-penned “The Freed Pig,” an attack on Barlow’s ex-bandmate J. Mascis, who fired him from his former band Dinosaur Jr. in 1989. However, the majority of Barlow material on III is acoustic, like the eponymous ode to his girlfriend and future wife, “Kath.”

Gaffney’s material includes the LSD-referencing album closer, “As the World Dies, the Eyes of God Grow Bigger,” which addresses his dark family life.

III was released the same month as Nirvana’s major label debut, Nevermind, which brought alternative rock to the mainstream. In the wake of Nirvana’s breakthrough, many other acts who emerged from the 1980s independent music scene, but remained signed to independent record labels, achieved modest success. Along with Pavement’s 1992 debut Slanted and Enchanted, III is considered one of the “cornerstones of 90s indie rock,” and helped establish the lo-fi subgenre.