David Bazan, "Curse Your Branches" 04/20/2010
By Doug Kaplan
✭✭✭ ½
There are three distinctive events that occurred in my childhood that I largely credit with having shaped who I am as a person.
The first was a discovery that happened in fifth grade. Until that point my mother had obediently packed my brown bagged lunch with those ever popular Polly-O String cheeses, never missing a beat, with the exception of April 5th 1996 when my cheese curiously slipped into my sister’s lunch pale causing the catastrophic collapse of my world largely referred to as The String Cheese Incident by my extended family. The real discovery, however, occurred when suddenly I had begun to balloon and no longer felt comfortable playing pool basketball with the neighboring children. Cheese has a lot of fat, and that upset me. I will be sure to tell my children this fact while they are still in the womb, just to avoid any confusion that could occur later on in elementary school.
The second event involved being bitten by my families puppy, a curiously adorable Silky Terrier named Chester, when he had no interest in being woken up during the commercial breaks of Sunday night’s 60 Minutes. It was traumatizing to know that something so cute and cuddly was capable of attacking me.
It is for the same reason that even now, some twelve years later, I will no longer date blondes. While they are undoubtedly the most attractive females, I know that when push comes to shove they will most likely not stick around to make me omelets in the way John Lennon and Paul McCartney so faithfully described in “When I’m 64.” Furthermore, with this ridiculous craze of vampire films appearing, discussed in my Bondy review, I am rightfully scared of the cultural role-playing sure to emerge in my age group.
The last, and most significant event to shape my childhood, occurred in late 2005 when David Bazan announced his separation from Seattle’s truth-child Pedro the Lion. The band had produced low-fi midnight tunes that could captivate any and every audience by drastically altering the room’s mood.
From ‘95 to 2005, Bazan had various musicians backing his songwriting. In his bitch-slap single from his first solo effort EP, Fewer Moving Parts, Bazan writes
Fewer moving parts means fewer broken pieces
When every other start requires a brand new thesis
One good friend remarks with a rightfully angry
Jesus dude! None of us know what to do with you
To which I in pride responded
I've got news for you
None of you have to 'cause
I still run the show
It appeared that the curtain Bazan had encompassed most of Pedro’s metaphors with was no longer protecting anyone. He had an ultimatum, and he no longer cared who knew it. And this is dangerous.
This is dangerous because Bazan is such a brilliant songwriter. In just a decade he has joined the ranks of Conor Oberst, Jeff Mangum, and Elliott Smith. So after four official Pedro albums, one all-too-similar to Ben Gibbard’s Postal Service Headphones side project album, and one solo EP, we arrive at Bazan’s first official full-length solo effort. This would be similar to Rogert Ebert calling a documentary made this year by Peter Jackson his “first film.” Bazan has a ton of experience and I had very high expectations for his new album.
Curse Your Branches, a ten-song effort, was released earlier this month. It is different from his previous work in that it attempts to take an introspective look at spiritual events, rather than girlfriends and drinking, which compile most of his discography. The album begins with a largely instrumental track, “Hard to Be”, which builds so much momentum, it’s hard not to feel like Rocky at the top of that Philadelphia staircase when the refrain finally hits. It is here that Bazan begs for us to begin asking questions. It is hard to be/hard to be/a decent human being.
Track three, “Please Baby Please”, appeared acoustically on his American Flags EP released earlier this year. The track sounds better than ever and chronologically follows the life of his daughter. Those pair of two big blue eyes/stare me down and they watch me fall/but what makes a man realize/that he is about to lose it all. Track four, the title track, is unflickeringly the best song on the album. When every hired gun/I’ve ever fired/is making love to you/while I look on. The chorus is so stereotypically Bazan that it makes me laugh. He demands that all leaves curse their branches for not letting them decide where they should fall.
From this point on, the middle chunk of the album is the most captivating. The next song, “Harmless Sparks”, is a track Bazan had been pairing with an acoustic Christmas cover called “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” when played on promotional performances. It is here that the religious imagery can no longer be denied. They might have burned/but the priests were all taking turns/showing nuns what they had discerned/about their bodies/in the dark.
Track seven, “Lost My Shape”, brings back the familiar theme of alcoholism to long time fans. It reminds me specifically of a Kevin Devine track, mainly his newest single I Could Be With Anyone. It has a specifically calculated repetition representative of KD’s style. Nonetheless, it is still an easy listen, and much in the same way that Neo-realistic film was so boring that it forced viewers to think about other things, I found myself drifting into thought specifically around the words prodigal, prophecy, and burn as if they were dragging me by the coattail. Now you hate what you’ve made/and you want to watch it burn.
In Stiches, the concluding track, Bazan brutally continues his quest.
When Job asked you the question,
You responded, "Who are you
To challenge your Creator?"
Well if that one part is true,
It makes you sound defensive
Like you had not thought it through
Enough to have an answer
Or you might have bit off more than you could chew
Overall, the album did not let me down. Its topics are ones that will not get boring. In an interview during Manchester Orchestra’s documentary, Let My Pride Be What’s Left Behind, front-man Andy Hull makes note that since his songs are not about girlfriends the topics are not ones that will become boring and unemotional. I feel that this is specifically true about Curse Your Branches. I can not wait to see what questions Bazan asks next.
1. Hard To Be
2. Bless This Mess
3. Please, Baby, Please
4. Curse Your Branches
5. Harmless Sparks
6. When We Fell
7. Lost My Shape
8. Bearing Witness
9. Heavy Breath
10. In Stitches
✭✭✭ ½
There are three distinctive events that occurred in my childhood that I largely credit with having shaped who I am as a person.
The first was a discovery that happened in fifth grade. Until that point my mother had obediently packed my brown bagged lunch with those ever popular Polly-O String cheeses, never missing a beat, with the exception of April 5th 1996 when my cheese curiously slipped into my sister’s lunch pale causing the catastrophic collapse of my world largely referred to as The String Cheese Incident by my extended family. The real discovery, however, occurred when suddenly I had begun to balloon and no longer felt comfortable playing pool basketball with the neighboring children. Cheese has a lot of fat, and that upset me. I will be sure to tell my children this fact while they are still in the womb, just to avoid any confusion that could occur later on in elementary school.
The second event involved being bitten by my families puppy, a curiously adorable Silky Terrier named Chester, when he had no interest in being woken up during the commercial breaks of Sunday night’s 60 Minutes. It was traumatizing to know that something so cute and cuddly was capable of attacking me.
It is for the same reason that even now, some twelve years later, I will no longer date blondes. While they are undoubtedly the most attractive females, I know that when push comes to shove they will most likely not stick around to make me omelets in the way John Lennon and Paul McCartney so faithfully described in “When I’m 64.” Furthermore, with this ridiculous craze of vampire films appearing, discussed in my Bondy review, I am rightfully scared of the cultural role-playing sure to emerge in my age group.
The last, and most significant event to shape my childhood, occurred in late 2005 when David Bazan announced his separation from Seattle’s truth-child Pedro the Lion. The band had produced low-fi midnight tunes that could captivate any and every audience by drastically altering the room’s mood.
From ‘95 to 2005, Bazan had various musicians backing his songwriting. In his bitch-slap single from his first solo effort EP, Fewer Moving Parts, Bazan writes
Fewer moving parts means fewer broken pieces
When every other start requires a brand new thesis
One good friend remarks with a rightfully angry
Jesus dude! None of us know what to do with you
To which I in pride responded
I've got news for you
None of you have to 'cause
I still run the show
It appeared that the curtain Bazan had encompassed most of Pedro’s metaphors with was no longer protecting anyone. He had an ultimatum, and he no longer cared who knew it. And this is dangerous.
This is dangerous because Bazan is such a brilliant songwriter. In just a decade he has joined the ranks of Conor Oberst, Jeff Mangum, and Elliott Smith. So after four official Pedro albums, one all-too-similar to Ben Gibbard’s Postal Service Headphones side project album, and one solo EP, we arrive at Bazan’s first official full-length solo effort. This would be similar to Rogert Ebert calling a documentary made this year by Peter Jackson his “first film.” Bazan has a ton of experience and I had very high expectations for his new album.
Curse Your Branches, a ten-song effort, was released earlier this month. It is different from his previous work in that it attempts to take an introspective look at spiritual events, rather than girlfriends and drinking, which compile most of his discography. The album begins with a largely instrumental track, “Hard to Be”, which builds so much momentum, it’s hard not to feel like Rocky at the top of that Philadelphia staircase when the refrain finally hits. It is here that Bazan begs for us to begin asking questions. It is hard to be/hard to be/a decent human being.
Track three, “Please Baby Please”, appeared acoustically on his American Flags EP released earlier this year. The track sounds better than ever and chronologically follows the life of his daughter. Those pair of two big blue eyes/stare me down and they watch me fall/but what makes a man realize/that he is about to lose it all. Track four, the title track, is unflickeringly the best song on the album. When every hired gun/I’ve ever fired/is making love to you/while I look on. The chorus is so stereotypically Bazan that it makes me laugh. He demands that all leaves curse their branches for not letting them decide where they should fall.
From this point on, the middle chunk of the album is the most captivating. The next song, “Harmless Sparks”, is a track Bazan had been pairing with an acoustic Christmas cover called “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” when played on promotional performances. It is here that the religious imagery can no longer be denied. They might have burned/but the priests were all taking turns/showing nuns what they had discerned/about their bodies/in the dark.
Track seven, “Lost My Shape”, brings back the familiar theme of alcoholism to long time fans. It reminds me specifically of a Kevin Devine track, mainly his newest single I Could Be With Anyone. It has a specifically calculated repetition representative of KD’s style. Nonetheless, it is still an easy listen, and much in the same way that Neo-realistic film was so boring that it forced viewers to think about other things, I found myself drifting into thought specifically around the words prodigal, prophecy, and burn as if they were dragging me by the coattail. Now you hate what you’ve made/and you want to watch it burn.
In Stiches, the concluding track, Bazan brutally continues his quest.
When Job asked you the question,
You responded, "Who are you
To challenge your Creator?"
Well if that one part is true,
It makes you sound defensive
Like you had not thought it through
Enough to have an answer
Or you might have bit off more than you could chew
Overall, the album did not let me down. Its topics are ones that will not get boring. In an interview during Manchester Orchestra’s documentary, Let My Pride Be What’s Left Behind, front-man Andy Hull makes note that since his songs are not about girlfriends the topics are not ones that will become boring and unemotional. I feel that this is specifically true about Curse Your Branches. I can not wait to see what questions Bazan asks next.
1. Hard To Be
2. Bless This Mess
3. Please, Baby, Please
4. Curse Your Branches
5. Harmless Sparks
6. When We Fell
7. Lost My Shape
8. Bearing Witness
9. Heavy Breath
10. In Stitches
1 Comment
By Doug Kaplan
✭✭✭✭
I’ve never been in a midnight organ fight. I’m not even positive on what exactly that type of incident would necessarily entail. I envision two people, one dressed in red and the other in blue, sitting on competing stages that look something along the lines of a presidential debate mixed with that old-school American Gladiator arena. Then, in one swift motion, someone waves a checkered flag and suddenly both pianists begin playing Bb’s and C#m’s at each other until finally one can no longer take the piercing notes, and collapses off his bench, dazed and defeated.
Going to school in upstate New York, I do know a lot about winter and mixed drinks, both of which are crucial topics on Scottish indie-rock Frightened Rabbit’s commercial sophomore effort, A Winter of Mixed Drinks. The band generated a lot of hype with its first commercial success, The Midnight Organ Fight, back in 2008. Before that, the band released an album in 2006 that I never gave too much attention to, called Sing the Greys. For the most part the band has generated hype on the indie circuit for lead singer Scott Hutchinson’s heavy Scottish accent and chiming rhythmic guitar accents typical of the Silversun Pickups or the All Get Out. The band’s newest album stylistically is very similar to the old.
Track one, “Things”, is a pop-oriented jingle, reuniting old fans with a familiar sound all the while introducing new ones to Hutchinson’s Scottish roots. It is an anti-capitalism anthem. The second track, “Swim Until You Can’t See Land”, is the album’s leading single. It is unusual for me to favor a song that is selected for the single as one of the best on the album, but in this case I find the song irresistibly catchy. It is easy to sing the refrain, Swim, until you can’t see land, are you a man or are you a bag of sand?, because it is repeated roughly about 36 times (complete and utter estimate).
Track 3, “The Loneliness”, never fails to remind me of something Chris Martin would put out on a newer Coldplay album. It is simple, but captivating. Track 6, “Nothing Like You”, is a great tune for the broken-hearted. Scott tells a story of finding a new girl, yet her still not “being the cure for cancer.” The next track, “Man/Bag of Sand” sounds as if it started out as the single discussed earlier, but was never built into anything. It is acoustic and repeats the refrain for a full two minutes before finally fading into the second half of the album. It does have a certain déjà-vu quality, however.
Two tracks later the second best song on the album appears. “Not Miserable” is lyrically brilliant and continues the album’s universal theme of water, sea, land, body, and sky. The proceeding track, “Living in Colour”, sounds so much like a money-making, Chris Martin-penned, Coldplay song that I actually had to check and make sure he was not credited with writing the song as to not appear like a fool in this article. The final song, “Yes, I Would”, provides systematic closure to a midlife crisis that lead singer Scott Hutchinson clearly experienced when composing his newest effort - My cry for a fistful of sand/breeds silence/hold me I am folding/the world just blinks/lead me I’m stupid from a lesson learned/you’ve learned nothing.
If you like Scottish accents, indie rock, and spiritual metaphors then this album will have a long life in your car’s heavy rotation glove compartment. The band has continued doing what they do best, and I imagine large commercial attention to ensue. Unlike the Kings of Leon, however, I hope Scott will live up to the nickname his mother provided him, which inspired the band’s name, (Frightened Rabbit) and have enough sense to stay off VH1.
1. Things
2. Swim Until You Can't See Land
3. The Loneliness and the Scream
4. The Wrestle
5. Skip The Youth
6. Nothing Like You
7. Man/Bag of Sand
8. Foot Shooter
9. Not Miserable
10. Living in Colour
11. Yes, I Would
✭✭✭✭
I’ve never been in a midnight organ fight. I’m not even positive on what exactly that type of incident would necessarily entail. I envision two people, one dressed in red and the other in blue, sitting on competing stages that look something along the lines of a presidential debate mixed with that old-school American Gladiator arena. Then, in one swift motion, someone waves a checkered flag and suddenly both pianists begin playing Bb’s and C#m’s at each other until finally one can no longer take the piercing notes, and collapses off his bench, dazed and defeated.
Going to school in upstate New York, I do know a lot about winter and mixed drinks, both of which are crucial topics on Scottish indie-rock Frightened Rabbit’s commercial sophomore effort, A Winter of Mixed Drinks. The band generated a lot of hype with its first commercial success, The Midnight Organ Fight, back in 2008. Before that, the band released an album in 2006 that I never gave too much attention to, called Sing the Greys. For the most part the band has generated hype on the indie circuit for lead singer Scott Hutchinson’s heavy Scottish accent and chiming rhythmic guitar accents typical of the Silversun Pickups or the All Get Out. The band’s newest album stylistically is very similar to the old.
Track one, “Things”, is a pop-oriented jingle, reuniting old fans with a familiar sound all the while introducing new ones to Hutchinson’s Scottish roots. It is an anti-capitalism anthem. The second track, “Swim Until You Can’t See Land”, is the album’s leading single. It is unusual for me to favor a song that is selected for the single as one of the best on the album, but in this case I find the song irresistibly catchy. It is easy to sing the refrain, Swim, until you can’t see land, are you a man or are you a bag of sand?, because it is repeated roughly about 36 times (complete and utter estimate).
Track 3, “The Loneliness”, never fails to remind me of something Chris Martin would put out on a newer Coldplay album. It is simple, but captivating. Track 6, “Nothing Like You”, is a great tune for the broken-hearted. Scott tells a story of finding a new girl, yet her still not “being the cure for cancer.” The next track, “Man/Bag of Sand” sounds as if it started out as the single discussed earlier, but was never built into anything. It is acoustic and repeats the refrain for a full two minutes before finally fading into the second half of the album. It does have a certain déjà-vu quality, however.
Two tracks later the second best song on the album appears. “Not Miserable” is lyrically brilliant and continues the album’s universal theme of water, sea, land, body, and sky. The proceeding track, “Living in Colour”, sounds so much like a money-making, Chris Martin-penned, Coldplay song that I actually had to check and make sure he was not credited with writing the song as to not appear like a fool in this article. The final song, “Yes, I Would”, provides systematic closure to a midlife crisis that lead singer Scott Hutchinson clearly experienced when composing his newest effort - My cry for a fistful of sand/breeds silence/hold me I am folding/the world just blinks/lead me I’m stupid from a lesson learned/you’ve learned nothing.
If you like Scottish accents, indie rock, and spiritual metaphors then this album will have a long life in your car’s heavy rotation glove compartment. The band has continued doing what they do best, and I imagine large commercial attention to ensue. Unlike the Kings of Leon, however, I hope Scott will live up to the nickname his mother provided him, which inspired the band’s name, (Frightened Rabbit) and have enough sense to stay off VH1.
1. Things
2. Swim Until You Can't See Land
3. The Loneliness and the Scream
4. The Wrestle
5. Skip The Youth
6. Nothing Like You
7. Man/Bag of Sand
8. Foot Shooter
9. Not Miserable
10. Living in Colour
11. Yes, I Would
Gobotron, "On Your Mark, Get Set..." 02/27/2010
Doug Kaplan
✭✭✭✭
It’s no secret that I am most likely the single greatest and undisputed Manchester Orchestra fan that exists in this solar system. It is not uncommon to find me on Sunday mornings outside churches engaging in debates over why Moses is slightly less significant than 5’6” front man Andy Hull. So when I heard that the youngest member of the Atlanta-based band, 22-year-old Robert McDowell, was releasing a solo project, needless to say I became intrigued. I wondered if Andy’s cathedral vocals and life disrupting lyrics would rub off on his lead guitar player. They didn’t, not quite.
McDowell’s first solo attempt, On You Mark, Get Set…, was released earlier this month. It is an album that you would be hard pressed to find being promoted anywhere outside of the sparkly gates of Favorite Gentleman Record Label. McDowell’s band name, Gobotron, was evidently derived from various nicknames Andy and Chris Freeman have referred to McDowell by over the years.
The entire album was written and recorded in his parent’s house in Georgia. He is a true one-man band and every instrument is masterfully played by himself. The sound of the album is much different than that of Manchester Orchestra. It’s not quite straightforward pop, nor does it match up with some of the newer, heavier MO material. Instead, it sounds as if GirlTalk’s Greg Gillis took all the forerunners of the indie/alternative/rock scene (i.e. Ben Kweller, My Morning Jacket, Jack’s Mannequin) and asked them to fuse their sound together. Then, to top things off, Jeff Mangum got a hold of the album and added that beautifully distorted finishing touch, typical of Neutral Milk Hotel and early Mountain Goats. All these things I’ve been writing could sound negative. Does this album sound like Andy Hull had anything to do with it? No. Does it sound original, unique, or groundbreaking? No. But this album is amazing.
McDowell has surely hit a homerun with his first attempt. He has created 10 pop-oriented jingles that will capture your attention, and then your heart. He has a lot of good ideas all in one place. This is most likely due to the untraditional writing method used for this album. McDowell was quoted as saying that he started by writing little parts of songs, and then building hooks or verses around those parts. For this album, this technique absolutely worked.
Oddly enough the only song on this album I have nothing good to say about the opening track. For sake of convincing you to buy this album, because I promise it’s worth your money, I’m simply going to pretend the 49 second track, “Nothing”, doesn’t exist. So we begin at track two. “Nice Things”is sure to ring a bell with a wide audience, from fans of the Beach Boys to those of Weezer. It screams to be played. And it should be, because it’s great.
The third track, “I Don’t Forgive”, begins with a marching band-strumming rhythm. The lyrics are catchy, but confusing - I lost my will/while carrying your luggage/I don’t forgive. The best track on the album is track four. “Never Turn Around”is a song that features distinctive vocals producing a very classic, Beatles melody. I played the song on the weekly radio show that I DJ at school, and many people asked me whom the band was. I imagine Rob would be more than happy to hear that.
The song “Cobbler” begins, my fingertips are opening to being judge/with backwards lanes and English bars/and people tuning my guitar. It is a strange phenomenon for me to really have no idea what most of these songs are about. Lyrically they seem simplistic, but I find it challenging to get a grip on their meaning. That might be what makes this album so captivating. I feel as if there is a secret I am missing out on, and I keep listening in hope that it will come to me.
The last song on the album, “Gold”, is the only song which resembles something Andy might have written. That might be why I think it’s one of the best on the album. The title is an extremely accurate depiction of the medal that this album would receive this winter Olympic season. It’s an album absolutely worth hearing, and I cannot wait to see if MO will begin to play any of these songs live. Until then, I will wait for McDowell’s sophomore effort.
1. Nothing
2. Nice Things
3. I Don’t Forgive
4. Never Turn Around
5. Got It!
6. Cobbler
7. Empty
8. I Lied
9. Pull It Too
10. Gold
✭✭✭✭
It’s no secret that I am most likely the single greatest and undisputed Manchester Orchestra fan that exists in this solar system. It is not uncommon to find me on Sunday mornings outside churches engaging in debates over why Moses is slightly less significant than 5’6” front man Andy Hull. So when I heard that the youngest member of the Atlanta-based band, 22-year-old Robert McDowell, was releasing a solo project, needless to say I became intrigued. I wondered if Andy’s cathedral vocals and life disrupting lyrics would rub off on his lead guitar player. They didn’t, not quite.
McDowell’s first solo attempt, On You Mark, Get Set…, was released earlier this month. It is an album that you would be hard pressed to find being promoted anywhere outside of the sparkly gates of Favorite Gentleman Record Label. McDowell’s band name, Gobotron, was evidently derived from various nicknames Andy and Chris Freeman have referred to McDowell by over the years.
The entire album was written and recorded in his parent’s house in Georgia. He is a true one-man band and every instrument is masterfully played by himself. The sound of the album is much different than that of Manchester Orchestra. It’s not quite straightforward pop, nor does it match up with some of the newer, heavier MO material. Instead, it sounds as if GirlTalk’s Greg Gillis took all the forerunners of the indie/alternative/rock scene (i.e. Ben Kweller, My Morning Jacket, Jack’s Mannequin) and asked them to fuse their sound together. Then, to top things off, Jeff Mangum got a hold of the album and added that beautifully distorted finishing touch, typical of Neutral Milk Hotel and early Mountain Goats. All these things I’ve been writing could sound negative. Does this album sound like Andy Hull had anything to do with it? No. Does it sound original, unique, or groundbreaking? No. But this album is amazing.
McDowell has surely hit a homerun with his first attempt. He has created 10 pop-oriented jingles that will capture your attention, and then your heart. He has a lot of good ideas all in one place. This is most likely due to the untraditional writing method used for this album. McDowell was quoted as saying that he started by writing little parts of songs, and then building hooks or verses around those parts. For this album, this technique absolutely worked.
Oddly enough the only song on this album I have nothing good to say about the opening track. For sake of convincing you to buy this album, because I promise it’s worth your money, I’m simply going to pretend the 49 second track, “Nothing”, doesn’t exist. So we begin at track two. “Nice Things”is sure to ring a bell with a wide audience, from fans of the Beach Boys to those of Weezer. It screams to be played. And it should be, because it’s great.
The third track, “I Don’t Forgive”, begins with a marching band-strumming rhythm. The lyrics are catchy, but confusing - I lost my will/while carrying your luggage/I don’t forgive. The best track on the album is track four. “Never Turn Around”is a song that features distinctive vocals producing a very classic, Beatles melody. I played the song on the weekly radio show that I DJ at school, and many people asked me whom the band was. I imagine Rob would be more than happy to hear that.
The song “Cobbler” begins, my fingertips are opening to being judge/with backwards lanes and English bars/and people tuning my guitar. It is a strange phenomenon for me to really have no idea what most of these songs are about. Lyrically they seem simplistic, but I find it challenging to get a grip on their meaning. That might be what makes this album so captivating. I feel as if there is a secret I am missing out on, and I keep listening in hope that it will come to me.
The last song on the album, “Gold”, is the only song which resembles something Andy might have written. That might be why I think it’s one of the best on the album. The title is an extremely accurate depiction of the medal that this album would receive this winter Olympic season. It’s an album absolutely worth hearing, and I cannot wait to see if MO will begin to play any of these songs live. Until then, I will wait for McDowell’s sophomore effort.
1. Nothing
2. Nice Things
3. I Don’t Forgive
4. Never Turn Around
5. Got It!
6. Cobbler
7. Empty
8. I Lied
9. Pull It Too
10. Gold
Eels, "End Times" 02/25/2010
By Doug Kaplan
✭✭✭
I am not an educated Eels fan. If you are someone who has been following Mark Everett since his solo efforts, roughly five years before I was born, then this review may seem rather unsophisticated and uninformed. However, if you happened to stumble upon Everett’s band name, or have even borrowed one of his albums from a friend, then we are in the same boat, and shoes as they say.
It was not until post high school graduation, in my efforts to find something to believe in, some life guidance and direction, that I discovered Everett’s long-term project, Blinking Lights & Other Revelations. At first I wasn’t blown away. For an album that had been reportedly recorded over an eight-year span, releasing entire albums in between, it seemed to lack any real agenda.
My best guess is that the album was half recorded while Everett was sailing on amphetamines. And the other half? A collaboration with the Blue-Man Group, while Everett played piano, triangle or whichever instrument he desired from his enormous one-man-band repertoire… while using his teeth. He lacked Elliott Smith’s reflectional self-pity and Jesse Lacey’s acoustic truths. I felt as if he had no light to show me. However, after listening to this album straight through fourteen times, according to my iTunes, I can say that I have changed my opinion. Make no mistake, that album is brilliant. But this review is not about that album.
While wasting time in a local record shop I came across Eels’ twelfth studio effort, entitled End Times. It appears that Everett has taken a less optimistic stance this time around. In classic style, the album begins with a fingerpicked acoustic track, "In the Beginning". Emoting an overwhelming loss of direction, the song speaks of how good things had once been.
The album continues on to talk about Everett’s youth with "In My Younger Days", and a crystallized theme is established. My favorite song can be heard five tracks in. On "A Line In The Dirt", Everett humorously expresses a familiar feeling with his opening lines She locked herself in a bathroom again/So I am pissing in the yard.
The title track doesn’t appear until mid-album. Singing of a man with a “crazy matted beard” (quite possibly the gas station-working Santa Clause figure appearing on the album’s cover), Everett vocalizes the character’s prophecy of how the end is near. But no one listens to the man except Everett himself who “can hear him loud and clear.” The message of the album is undeniable from this point on.
The next ‘song’, for lack of a better word, is "Apple Trees". It is a monologue over a simple guitar riff, in which Everett discusses his discovery of a street with thousands of apple trees during a road trip. He compares himself to one tree among all the others. The one tree does not particularly stand out, and Everett expresses that’s how he too felt. How’s that for direct ideology?
The rest of the album plays out much like the beginning. It concludes with a jingle called "Little Bird". This song sounds like a letter to God asking for a repaired heart. On an album whose candle of hope constantly dims and dwindles, this final track leaves its listeners with an intangible grasp that they might be saved after all.
The iTunes deluxe edition comes with a few bonus songs, which are surprisingly nothing like Everett’s other B-sides. One in particular, "Some Friend, shines through, and is up to par with the rest of the album. "Some Friend" is a tune that probably should have made the final cut had it not been for conflict in major themes with the rest of the tracks.
End Times is a combination of obscure sounds and beautifully orchestrated piano/guitar works, which fuse together to form Eels’ distinctive qualities, yet perfect ability to define the Indie/Folk genre. Overall, the album is an easy listen with pretty melodies and catchy refrains. It fits nicely into Eels’ decade-long catalog, and is a must hear for fans of the band or genre.
1. In The Beginning
2. Gone Man
3. In My Younger Days
4. Mansions of Los Feliz
5. A Line In The Dirt
6. End Times
7. Apple Trees
8. Paradise Blues
9. Nowadays
10. Unhinged
11. High and Lonesome
12. I Need A Mother
13. Little Bird
14. On My Feet
✭✭✭
I am not an educated Eels fan. If you are someone who has been following Mark Everett since his solo efforts, roughly five years before I was born, then this review may seem rather unsophisticated and uninformed. However, if you happened to stumble upon Everett’s band name, or have even borrowed one of his albums from a friend, then we are in the same boat, and shoes as they say.
It was not until post high school graduation, in my efforts to find something to believe in, some life guidance and direction, that I discovered Everett’s long-term project, Blinking Lights & Other Revelations. At first I wasn’t blown away. For an album that had been reportedly recorded over an eight-year span, releasing entire albums in between, it seemed to lack any real agenda.
My best guess is that the album was half recorded while Everett was sailing on amphetamines. And the other half? A collaboration with the Blue-Man Group, while Everett played piano, triangle or whichever instrument he desired from his enormous one-man-band repertoire… while using his teeth. He lacked Elliott Smith’s reflectional self-pity and Jesse Lacey’s acoustic truths. I felt as if he had no light to show me. However, after listening to this album straight through fourteen times, according to my iTunes, I can say that I have changed my opinion. Make no mistake, that album is brilliant. But this review is not about that album.
While wasting time in a local record shop I came across Eels’ twelfth studio effort, entitled End Times. It appears that Everett has taken a less optimistic stance this time around. In classic style, the album begins with a fingerpicked acoustic track, "In the Beginning". Emoting an overwhelming loss of direction, the song speaks of how good things had once been.
The album continues on to talk about Everett’s youth with "In My Younger Days", and a crystallized theme is established. My favorite song can be heard five tracks in. On "A Line In The Dirt", Everett humorously expresses a familiar feeling with his opening lines She locked herself in a bathroom again/So I am pissing in the yard.
The title track doesn’t appear until mid-album. Singing of a man with a “crazy matted beard” (quite possibly the gas station-working Santa Clause figure appearing on the album’s cover), Everett vocalizes the character’s prophecy of how the end is near. But no one listens to the man except Everett himself who “can hear him loud and clear.” The message of the album is undeniable from this point on.
The next ‘song’, for lack of a better word, is "Apple Trees". It is a monologue over a simple guitar riff, in which Everett discusses his discovery of a street with thousands of apple trees during a road trip. He compares himself to one tree among all the others. The one tree does not particularly stand out, and Everett expresses that’s how he too felt. How’s that for direct ideology?
The rest of the album plays out much like the beginning. It concludes with a jingle called "Little Bird". This song sounds like a letter to God asking for a repaired heart. On an album whose candle of hope constantly dims and dwindles, this final track leaves its listeners with an intangible grasp that they might be saved after all.
The iTunes deluxe edition comes with a few bonus songs, which are surprisingly nothing like Everett’s other B-sides. One in particular, "Some Friend, shines through, and is up to par with the rest of the album. "Some Friend" is a tune that probably should have made the final cut had it not been for conflict in major themes with the rest of the tracks.
End Times is a combination of obscure sounds and beautifully orchestrated piano/guitar works, which fuse together to form Eels’ distinctive qualities, yet perfect ability to define the Indie/Folk genre. Overall, the album is an easy listen with pretty melodies and catchy refrains. It fits nicely into Eels’ decade-long catalog, and is a must hear for fans of the band or genre.
1. In The Beginning
2. Gone Man
3. In My Younger Days
4. Mansions of Los Feliz
5. A Line In The Dirt
6. End Times
7. Apple Trees
8. Paradise Blues
9. Nowadays
10. Unhinged
11. High and Lonesome
12. I Need A Mother
13. Little Bird
14. On My Feet
A.A. Bondy, "When The Devil's Loose" 02/17/2010
By Doug Kaplan
✭✭✭✭
Scott Bondy's vocals sound as if Bob Dylan had inhaled an extraordinarily small dose of helium from a balloon, and began to sing - but in a good way. After leaving his first band, Verbena, he has finally found the right sound with his newest project, A.A. Bondy. Verbena was a rock band, featuring blaring solos and distortion pedals, but after knowing how good Bondy’s solo efforts are I cannot fathom him having stayed in that band one day longer.
This review is coming at a rather untraditional time, roughly a full year after When The Devil’s Loose’s release. I only feel compelled to review this album so late because it is, for lack of a more educated phrase, just so damn good.
After leaving his band, Bondy released an acoustic solo album entitled American Hearts in 2007. I listened to the album during my lunch periods in high school and thought it was impressive but too simple and/or gentle. I passed the album off to my father who had a more typical middle-aged white suburban taste. He enjoyed the album but stuck with his heavy rotation of Gin Blossoms and Bruce Springsteen on his daily VW drive to Manhattan.
Bondy’s second album, When the Devil’s Loose, was released mid 2009. It wasn’t until Bondy’s latest Daytrotter session that I gave his newest album a fair try, and it blew my face off.
Unlike Bondy’s first solo effort, in which he wrote the songs while staring out his friend’s kitchen into the snow of Rosendale, New York, this one was primarily written in Mississippi. The album features a variety of instruments, but less harmonica than I had hoped for; one of Bondy’s staple live instruments. The first track, “The Mightiest of Guns”, is a quiet rant that ropes listeners in.
The second track, “A Slow Parade”, takes those listeners and staples them to their headphones until the album is finished, repeated, and finished again. It is on this song that Bondy’s true lyrical genius shines through. Marching in a slow parade/ There are ashes where you laid/ You’re just a rider at the wheel/In a dream where love was real. The album melts into the title track, “When the Devil’s Loose” - Oh the living, and the dying, how easily you bruise/Oh Delia don’t good down when the devil’s loose.
With the exception of track five, “Oh the Vampyre”, the album is arranged in beautiful fashion. This track stands alone in drawing my finger to the skip button. However, I could definitely see myself liking it if I was one of those ever so prevalent Twilight or True Blood fans that exist in the craze of today. My dismissive tendencies are also due to the fact that the album’s single follows right after.
“I Can Feel the Pines are Dancing” is probably the best track written on this album. The studio recording features two distinctive vocal keys. When played live, the song features long harmonica solos and only the higher vocals. I constantly find myself on the fence over which version is superior. Regardless, the song is a masterpiece.
Track nine, “The Mercy Wheel, is my favorite song of Bondy’s. The chorus seems to consistently evoke a powerful emotion - Into the mercy wheel/See it spinning/In the twilight/Now tell me how do you feel? Wanting to know what others are thinking is a universal feeling and easily relatable.
The album concludes with one of the only tracks not written in Mississippi, but rather New York. “The Coal Hits the Fire” closes the ten-song effort perfectly. The song sounds as if Uncle Sam himself was playing the pounding march of the snare drum.
Overall this is album is a brilliant creation. It does nothing new, but does everything right. I cannot wait to see where A.A. Bondy will take his future albums, but in the meantime I will be more than satisfied listening to When the Devil’s Loose time and time over again.
1. Mightiest of Guns
2. A Slow Parade
3. When The Devil’s Loose
4. To The Morning
5. Oh The Vampyre
6. I Can See The Pines Are Dancing
7. False River
8. On The Moon
9. The Mercy Wheel
10. The Coal Hits The Fire
✭✭✭✭
Scott Bondy's vocals sound as if Bob Dylan had inhaled an extraordinarily small dose of helium from a balloon, and began to sing - but in a good way. After leaving his first band, Verbena, he has finally found the right sound with his newest project, A.A. Bondy. Verbena was a rock band, featuring blaring solos and distortion pedals, but after knowing how good Bondy’s solo efforts are I cannot fathom him having stayed in that band one day longer.
This review is coming at a rather untraditional time, roughly a full year after When The Devil’s Loose’s release. I only feel compelled to review this album so late because it is, for lack of a more educated phrase, just so damn good.
After leaving his band, Bondy released an acoustic solo album entitled American Hearts in 2007. I listened to the album during my lunch periods in high school and thought it was impressive but too simple and/or gentle. I passed the album off to my father who had a more typical middle-aged white suburban taste. He enjoyed the album but stuck with his heavy rotation of Gin Blossoms and Bruce Springsteen on his daily VW drive to Manhattan.
Bondy’s second album, When the Devil’s Loose, was released mid 2009. It wasn’t until Bondy’s latest Daytrotter session that I gave his newest album a fair try, and it blew my face off.
Unlike Bondy’s first solo effort, in which he wrote the songs while staring out his friend’s kitchen into the snow of Rosendale, New York, this one was primarily written in Mississippi. The album features a variety of instruments, but less harmonica than I had hoped for; one of Bondy’s staple live instruments. The first track, “The Mightiest of Guns”, is a quiet rant that ropes listeners in.
The second track, “A Slow Parade”, takes those listeners and staples them to their headphones until the album is finished, repeated, and finished again. It is on this song that Bondy’s true lyrical genius shines through. Marching in a slow parade/ There are ashes where you laid/ You’re just a rider at the wheel/In a dream where love was real. The album melts into the title track, “When the Devil’s Loose” - Oh the living, and the dying, how easily you bruise/Oh Delia don’t good down when the devil’s loose.
With the exception of track five, “Oh the Vampyre”, the album is arranged in beautiful fashion. This track stands alone in drawing my finger to the skip button. However, I could definitely see myself liking it if I was one of those ever so prevalent Twilight or True Blood fans that exist in the craze of today. My dismissive tendencies are also due to the fact that the album’s single follows right after.
“I Can Feel the Pines are Dancing” is probably the best track written on this album. The studio recording features two distinctive vocal keys. When played live, the song features long harmonica solos and only the higher vocals. I constantly find myself on the fence over which version is superior. Regardless, the song is a masterpiece.
Track nine, “The Mercy Wheel, is my favorite song of Bondy’s. The chorus seems to consistently evoke a powerful emotion - Into the mercy wheel/See it spinning/In the twilight/Now tell me how do you feel? Wanting to know what others are thinking is a universal feeling and easily relatable.
The album concludes with one of the only tracks not written in Mississippi, but rather New York. “The Coal Hits the Fire” closes the ten-song effort perfectly. The song sounds as if Uncle Sam himself was playing the pounding march of the snare drum.
Overall this is album is a brilliant creation. It does nothing new, but does everything right. I cannot wait to see where A.A. Bondy will take his future albums, but in the meantime I will be more than satisfied listening to When the Devil’s Loose time and time over again.
1. Mightiest of Guns
2. A Slow Parade
3. When The Devil’s Loose
4. To The Morning
5. Oh The Vampyre
6. I Can See The Pines Are Dancing
7. False River
8. On The Moon
9. The Mercy Wheel
10. The Coal Hits The Fire
