Critic's Review
Sean Carruthers, All Music Guide
Jr. Gone Wild's debut, Less Art More Pop, was a scattershot affair, flirting with Byrdsy country but without the chops to make it truly convincing. The follow-up took four years, and a lot happened during that time: two of the original members were let go, the band signed with hometown label Stony Plain, the band reunited with one of the sacked members, and the new unit practiced a lot. By the time Too Dumb to Quit came together, Jr. Gone Wild was an efficient unit whose talents matched leader Mike McDonald's musical ambitions. The album still shows a country influence, but with a punk energy that placed them closer to Beat Farmers than to the Byrds for most of the album (the notable exceptions being "Poet's Highway" and the folky "Sleep With a Stranger"). The "I Don't" songs bookending the album ("I Don't Know About All That" and "I Don't Need That Anymore") are the strongest, but there are a lot of great moments in between, making this the band's most satisfying album.
