The year after “the year punk broke,” 1992, was a special 12-month period in the music world. A number of seminal recording artists released exceptional albums: PJ Harvey’s brilliant debut “Dry,” Sonic Youth’s most accessible project, “Dirty,” and lo-fi champ Pavement’s at times inscrutable but consistently satisfying “Slanted and Enchanted.” Add to that list acclaimed releases by the Beastie Boys, Tom Waits and Los Lobos.
But a playful, upstart hip-hop act out of Atlanta topped the Village Voice’s Pazz and Jop Poll. Arrested Development’s “3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life of …” was championed by music critics for a variety of reasons.
Arrested Development offered positive and cerebral hip-hop, the antithesis of the gangsta rap that was pervasive a quarter of a century ago.
“We were just doing what we wanted to do,” rapper Speech, aka Todd Thomas, said in a call from his Atlanta home. “We weren’t following trends. We just went for it. It took awhile for us to get there.”
The title of the band’s breakthrough release, which includes the anthemic smash “Tennessee” and the sunny hits “People Everyday” and “Mr. Wendal,” refers to the span from when the band formed until it secured a recording contract.
The irony is that was also about how long it took from the release of “3 Years” until the act broke up in 1995.
“We pulled the plug because we were having internal issues,” Speech said. “Some people were jealous due to attention issues and some people thought money wasn’t evenly split. We had to move on.”
Speech went solo and enjoyed some success. The group reunited in 2000 and have been together ever since.
“We needed to go through what we went through,” Speech said. “I’m more inspired now than ever.”
Arrested Development, which will perform Saturday, Feb. 6, at the Mohegan Sun’s Wolf Den, has crafted a pair of new albums. “Changing the Narrative” will drop mid-month and “This Was Never Home” will be released the following week.
“We have two very different albums coming out very soon,” Speech said. “‘Changing the Narrative’ is very sample heavy. Every song has samples. We sampled a lot of funk and jazz. The other album has very few samples. It uses more of our musicality. It’s two different disciplines. We love coming up with new material. If we just played our hits, it would be like hell on earth.”
Expect plenty of the familiar from Arrested Development, though.
“We’ll play the songs fans want to hear,” Speech said. “I get it. If I see Prince, I don’t just want to hear deep album cuts. I want the hits just like everyone else. We’ll provide the hits but we appreciate the fact that our fans are sophisticated. They don’t only want to hear the well-known songs. They embrace the new material we play as well. They understand that an artist is excited about what was just created.”
Thomas scratches his head when pondering the climate of contemporary pop.
“I don’t know how so much of this music sells so well since a lot of it is so corny,” Thomas said. “It’s like a cardboard cutout. There’s little value in it. But I’m hoping things are going to change and I hope we’ll be riding that wave of change. With these albums, I think we’re going to prick you in a way that you haven’t been pricked in awhile. We’re going deeper. I think we can all use some music with depth.”
“ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT” appears Saturday, Feb. 6, at 8 p.m. at the Wolf Den at the Mohegan Sun, 1 Mohegan Sun Blvd., Uncasville. Free. 888-226-7711 and mohegansun.com