Forget Alligator, Boxer, et al. Forget the intricately
crafted textures,
the subtle instrumental wizardry, the layered arrangements and the
gripping atmosphere that have become The National’s trademarks. Forget
Matt Berninger’s half-awake half-drunk insights into human nature. All
that’s still well into the future. The National’s debut is an
album featuring group of friends who decided to form a band, wrote some
music in their living rooms and recorded it with little in the way of greater ambitions before they had played a single show.
The
self-titled first album lacks the dynamics, the songcraft and the
instrumental signatures (Bryan Devendorff’s distinct drumming style, the
Dessners’
interlocking guitar parts, Scott Devendorff wasn’t even officially on
bass at this stage) that The National have come to be known for.
Instead, you have mid-tempo rock songs with
little variety on arrangements or composition. Matt Berninger’s
instantly identifiable crooning is the main thing that ties the
self-titled with its successors and you occasionally get a whiff of
musical foreshadowing of what’s to come in the future, but in every
other respect this is The National in embryo stage. They’re still trying
to
find a foothold in the world of music, searching for a sound of their
own with only a hint of knowledge of their own talents; less indie
superstars, more the band at the back of the bar. Even the hints of
future directions lean towards wholly different areas, with an
unexpected alt-country vein rearing its head across the album and giving
the impression there was a chance the band could just as easily have
headed into Nashville rather than New York nightlife. And at the same
time, it’s only a hint that never dares to fully come into the
forefront, almost like the band wasn’t even certain if that was
something they should be doing.
Admittedly
it’s a little underwhelming but if you avoid comparing this to the rest
of the band’s catalogue it does show in a better light. The songs are a
little
one-note, but it’s a decent note and Berninger’s charisma carries it far
better than it might have with some other singer. Each track carries at
least one reasonably solid idea and especially the relatively up-tempo
“Beautiful Head”, the lazy swagger of “Anna Freud” and the clearly
intended stand-out torchlight song “American Mary” become familiar
friends fairly soon. “Son” is
the the only real glimpse of the band’s future you can hear here: it
has all the elements of a classic National track and while they’ve not
fully clicked into place yet, it’s the best song on the album. Even so,
it says something when the standout song of the album is “29 Years”
(which shares its
lyrics with Boxer’s “Slow Show”): more an interlude than a full song,
it breaks away from the rest of the album’s mid-tempo waddling by
wrapping itself in lo-fi fuzz and taking an angle more atmospheric than
musical. On any other album it might be little more than curio, but here
it positively stands out as something different that stretches the borders beyond the established range - a
promise of a more interesting future.
Even with its positive
points this is nonetheless completely inessential to anyone but the
biggest fans and even those
might find it rather throwaway. With time it’s grown on me to an extent
but
it’s hard to say whether I’d have given it the opportunity to grow on
me if it wasn’t for the band’s future efforts; and still, it’s not an
album of hidden depths or slowburning glories. It’s an alright recording
from a group who hadn’t yet discovered their voice, a set of early
efforts that somehow ended up being recorded in a studio before the band
was really ready for it. It makes for a comfortably decent album, but
nowhere close to a real revelatory experience.
1) Sleeps a Friendly Stranger; 2) A Hard Try; 3) City & the Streets; 4) Buildings; 5) Hinges; 6) Why Don't You Let It Happen; 7) The Interventionist; 8) Jesus/Hypnotist; 9) Bill Withers; 10) Wrappt in a Carpet
Rubik as a rock band. Unfairly forgotten: the later albums really don't show off just how solid these guys were with guitars, and you can find a lot of classics here.
Funny how things change in retrospect. Once upon a time Bad Conscience Patrol sounded like a brand new band's promising, exciting entrance: an album that was clearly hailing from an established, popular sound but which had a lot of great songwriting to it and enough personality that it was clear Rubik would be a force to reckoned with once they'd find their own voice. And they truly did find it, to the point that everything after the first album bears barely a resemblance to Bad Conscience Patrol, and the debut now looks like a bizarre relic out of place in the band's discography. What made Rubik so interesting in the first place ultimately proved to have no bearing to why they would be a great band.
But back in 2007, Rubik were a part of the wave of rock bands borne in the aftermath of OK Computer. Bad Conscience Patrol flicks through various strains the post-Radiohead bands took, switching from millennial paranoia and anxiety to sky-piercing anthems laced with careful hope. Bad Conscience Patrol wears its influences in its sleeves and some songs lean towards their inspirations more than others ("Wrappt in a Carpt" sounds exactly what you would write after binging on OK Computer, the Yorke-isms of the title included) but Rubik carefully flash their own character throughout, to make it clear there's more to them than their record collection. The band's characteristic erratic creativity is present already, leading to plenty of unexpected twists along the way that aren't all too obvious from the initial notes: the bonkers rhythm-flicking assault of "Buildings" isis the musical equivalent of your cat having a sudden freak-out running around the room, and "Why Don't You Let It Happen" shifts moods from murky organ pitter-patter to a jovial march and eventually an epic closure like three songs perfectly inhabiting a single skin. They bring a touch of something surprising to the mix, songs rarely going exactly where you imagined they would from the first notes.
The big (re-)revelation Bad Conscience Patrol offers is
that it's a showcase of just how solid and powerful Rubik were as a
rock band - something that the later albums would go to great lengths to
obscure. The majority of the songs here breathe the spirit of
90s Britrock but reflected through a unique kind of Nordic lens by way of e.g. Mew: something a little more muscular biding its time in the background, brighter melodies interspersed with crunchy riffs. Rubik also prove that they can go hard if
they wanted to: distorted explosions of guitar walls are deployed
tactically throughout, keeping the songs on their toes. "Sleeps a
Friendly Stranger" and the aforementioned "Buildings" harness Rubik's
manic energy into slightly askew rock anthems that rampage like wild
beasts in an enclosed space, "The Interventionist" and "Bill Withers"
are the album's rock edge at loudest and crunchiest with the former a emotion-laden cry for action and the latter the album's darkest and heaviest cut, and while "Hinges"
tones down the guitars and locks into a groove, it keeps its tension
bubbling under. Even when they're most obviously paying tribute to their
idols, the songwriting stays strong: "Wrappt in a Carpt" may sound like
a ripoff but it's a top quality one, building to a finale wrapped in
its own paranoia and closing the album to a spellbinding degree, leaving
the album to rest on a disquieting but memorable note.
On three particular occasions Rubik completely knock it out of the park, and it's the album's three singles that show Bad Conscience Patrol at its strongest. "City and the Streets" in particular: it's a phenomenal song that for four and a half minutes sounds like the only music there is that matters, soaring in its melancholy euphoria with Artturi Taira's mumbling falsetto instantly becoming the kind of voice that could recite a phone book and resonate a hundredfold. It's one of the best rock songs that Finland has produced to these ears, without any hyperbole: a landmark Finnish indie classic the likes of which rarely land. The towering "A Hard Try" almost does it again, being a hit that never was: an honest-to-god guitar anthem that reaches blissfully cathartic highs through its melodic firework choruses. It's not close to being as strong a "City & the Streets" but that only speaks to the strengths of that song; on its own "A Hard Try" is a classic cut that could have launched a new band with some wider exposure. The last of the lot is also the album's oddball moment, which ironically turned out to be the one thing here that hints where Rubik would venture: the bright, airy and melodic "Jesus/Hypnotist" is in such a huge
contrast to anything else on the album that the whole song on its
own is a surprise (one of the lead melodic instruments is a banjo), and it's only its guitar-revved finale that brings it in line with the rest of the album. But, its colourful pop twinkle is a thing of beauty and marvel from the get-go: it's so warmly welcoming that the fact that it's so out of place between two of the album's murkiest songs gets brushed away quickly from way of enjoyment. If anything, it acts as the album's brief respite moment as it launches its darker final cuts.
It's practically inevitable but Bad Conscience Patrol itself is framed by its strangeness from its own discography and it's hard to really discuss it without making those comparisons; especially as the kaleidoscopic, more technicolour outfit Rubik changed into gave them the brief amount of wider international exposure and thus sealed the deal as their definitive sound. Following Rubik's dissolution and the attestment that three albums (and some EPs) are all we'll ever get, Bad Conscience Patrol has (perhaps surprisingly) managed to hold its weight better than expected and arguably sounds even better than it did when Rubik's transformation was a current event taking the attention away from the humble beginnings. It's a different side of the band here, utilising their wild ideas into a shape that's on one hand more conventional and something we've all heard before, but in Rubik's hands becomes something that frequently surprises, inspires and, in the end, still excites. While Bad Conscience Patrol may not win all the points on originality, it's thrilling and engaging, and Rubik as a guitar-driven rock outfit could easily stand with the best of their peers. With time the album revealed itself to be more than just a debut with great promise; instead, it can confidently be called a small classic of the rich Finnish 00's indie scene that stands strongly on its own accord.
1) March into the Sea; 2) Dashboard; 3) Fire It Up; 4) Florida; 5) Parting of the Sensory; 6) Missed the Boat; 7) We’ve Got Everything; 8) Fly Trapped in a Jar; 9) Education; 10) Little Motel; 11) Steam Engenius; 12) Spitting Venom; 13) People as Places as People; 14) Invisible
Modest Mouse prove that they can lay proper focus on song craft with a semi-concept album, and that they can pull it off without losing any of their manic energy. Johnny Marr inexplicably guest stars.
Modest Mouse circa We Were Dead Before the Ship even Sank were going through a lot of changes.
Their major label debut Good News for People Who Love Bad News had been a surprise hit,
and the success had suddenly opened the way to big-time recording
studios and bigger budgets to record with. Coincidentally the band’s
vision of their music had started to change as well, though not towards
the much-feared mainstreamification some assumed. The tried and tested
trio setup had ran its course in the band’s head and while Good News had
already turned the frequent helping hand Dan Gallucci into a stable
part of the group, their new ambitions paved way for a further expanded
approach and a more layered sound. The stage line-up had doubled in size
to accommodate this new vision and to bring it to life on in concerts,
and suddenly the band was officially filled with multi-instrumentalists
and helping hands. Good News might feel like the easy border between the
old and new incarnations of Modest Mouse but it has a lot more common
with its older siblings than most give it credit for: We Were Dead
reinvented the band, both in sound and as a group of people.
Isaac Brock’s songwriting, too, was going through changes. It had
been growing more nuanced for a while but Brock started the We Were Dead
sessions like he had something to prove. It was originally a concept
album: one by one, song by song, the crew of an unlucky ship would die
until there would be no one left. The concept was eventually scrapped
and only traces of it remain in the finished album in a confusing manner
where shared characters appear as frequently as they are forgotten, but
the fact that Brock & Co were even plotting an honest-to-god
focused story that ties every song together instead of simply using
general overarching themes is already telling of the change in the
band’s ways. Modest Mouse are a not a group that do cohesion and careful
organisation, after all: their songs are always on the verge of
unravelling and it’s never too long until they do, the albums are long
and rambling 70-minute slabs of erratic twists and turns and Brock can
switch from soft and emotional to rabid yelping and barking in a flash,
accentuated by his equally messy guitar style. Here though, there’s
clarity and focus, and even with the concept gone the songs sound like
they were carefully thought over and composed. This shift in tone was
further aided by the rather random appearance of Johnny Marr, who had
casually decided to tag along full-time after a few informal sessions
together. He didn’t bring much of a direct musical influence with him
(his guitar parts for most parts sound like his reinterpretation of
Brock’s style, rather than uniquely his own) but his decades of
experience and a more refined songwriting style likely rubbed off onto
Brock.
The red line running through We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
is that Brock’s talent as a songwriter is constantly being highlighted.
Sure, it was clear before that the band wrote good songs - the previous
albums are full of them - but Modest Mouse have only rarely come across
as a group with a real, determined focus on crafting
a song. Usually they just channel their manic energy through their
instruments and magic happens in the process, but We Were Dead
approaches the process from a different angle: this time it feels like
Brock and the band actually sat down to think of all the nuances in
writing a song and how to make each second count. The concept album
angle is a slightly over the top logical conclusion of that path but
even when that was dropped, Brock kept focusing on the melodies, the
arrangements and the structures. That’s how we’ve ended up with songs
like “Little Motel”, “Fire It Up” or “Missed the Boat”, which would have
been unreal on any previous album. They’re intricate, beautiful
compositions that are a natural yet long-missed evolution of back
catalogue favourites like “3rd Planet” or “The World at Large”, where
the band’s tight interplay is used to create something genuinely lovely.
“Missed the Boat” in particular is quite a thing – its verses keep
shifting shape, the chorus soars like it’s the most effortless,
weightless thing there is (with The Shins’ James Mercer making one of
his three very audible contributions here) and Marr flourishes the song
with his most Smiths-esque riffs in the album, all coming together to
form a song that sounds so small and down to earth yet still so
impactful and impressive. The token long track “Spitting Venom” is
similarly empowered by the new approach: where the past songs of
extended length brought on the minutes through sticking to particular
grooves and intense jamming, “Spitting Venom” evolves its arrangement as
its initial tight rock-out seamlessly transforms into the
horn-accentuated, mammoth finale, constantly adding and dropping details
so it never feels like it’s repeating itself.
We Were Dead switches between these new sweeter cuts and the usual
Mouse-esque franticness and off-kilter rock throughout the album, just
to squash any worries that there’s no more fire in the band’s belly. In
fact, that’s actually where most of the album’s best moments come from:
the whimsical yelper pop of “We’ve Got Everything” and “Steam Engenius”,
the gloriously demented neuro-rocker “Fly Trapped in a Jar” and the
more polished energy rush of “Florida” are as smart, frantic and
exciting as the band’s ever done. The hit single “Dashboard” answers the
questions of whether the band could follow up on the success of “Float
On” (yes) and if they could pull it off even better (yes) - with its
inspired double drum tracks, horn punctuations, quirky backing vocals
and rapid fire chorus spit, it’s a song that’s both instantly enjoyable
as well as bizarre enough to make you wonder how it became a radio
staple. Like all Modest Mouse albums We Were Dead feels slightly
overlong but this time there’s no obvious tracks to cut - no interludes,
no novelty moments, no overrunning sketches. Regardless of their nature
each song is fleshed out fully and wrapped tight, running exactly as
long as they need to and yet long enough to develop all those brilliant
arrangements and melodies to their richest. The only tracklist complaint
I’ve got is that “Invisible” cuts the album off rather abruptly, but
it’s hard to fault the song for it - it’s a great, muscular power punch,
even if it’s an awkward closer. It’s an imperfection but hardly a deal
breaker, and there’s something very typically Modest Mouse-like in such
an ending.
Which, I guess, works perfectly as a reminder that it’s still Modest
Mouse despite all, because flipping back and forth between the previous
albums and this the change is so stark. The six-piece on We Were Dead
Before the ShipEven Sank is obviously operating way differently to the
lo-fi teen angst and fury that the band made their name with and the
change is stark enough that you could be justified in calling this a
brand new second incarnation of the band, the start of a whole new book
rather than just a chapter. I love the rawness of the earlier albums as
much as anyone, but focusing on that is kind of missing the point.
Everything presented on this album has reared its head here and there
throughout the band’s works and now Brock’s finally decided to bring it
out in full force while having the means to do it - it’s making an
occasionally teased promise actually realise in full glory. That’s why
it’s not really turning the back on the old sound when We Were Dead
turns out to be their best album - it shines the light on the building
blocks that have always contributed to their music being great but which
never got the center stage before.
1) The Stars of Track and Field; 2) Seeing Other People; 3) Me and the Major; 4) Like Dylan in the Movies; 5) Fox in the Snow; 6) Get Me Away from here, I'm Dying; 7) If You're Feeling Sinister; 8) Mayfly; 9) The Boy Done Wrong Again; 10) Judy and the Dream of Horses
First shot at an actual attempt to start a career in music. Still has all the hallmarks of a thoroughly pleasant B&S experience, but maybe they should have waited more than five months from Tigermilk.
Tigermilk was little more than a glorified university project, but it captured far more attention than Stuart Murdoch and co could have ever imagined. Critical acclaim followed, labels got interested and everyone wanted more from this dainty little pseudo-group, and Murdoch decided to turn Belle and Sebastian into a real band. If You're Feeling Sinister was recorded quickly after signing up with Jeepster - their second album within a year, released within five months from Tigermilk - and it's a response to the new reality. It's a more seriously composed record, with a more nuanced take on the style the group won people over with on Tigermilk; a real debut album from a real band.
If You're Feeling Sinister leaves me a little colder than it probably should, and some of that can probably be blamed on the haphazard way I have navigated across the B&S discography, with this album somehow being one of the last ones I heard from the group (even after the b-side compilations). While a major milestone for Belle and Sebastian in terms of establishing their early signature sound, by the time I personally got around to it I had heard everything it had to offer before already and I had heard it in more interesting ways. Tigermilk may lack the finesse but it in its place it had a whole load of quirky charm, as well an unexpected off-beatness to it that If You're Feeling Sinister deliberately avoids. You won't find curveballs like the debut's "Electronic Renaissance" to an even remote degree here, and instead everything more off-the-cuff was released on the EPs surrounding Sinister. The following couple of full-length elements would then further develop this particular sound while including some of those unexpected elements to a more balanced degree. In comparison to its surrounding releases If You're Feeling Sinister sounds practically a tad plain, a work taking shape but still in progress - and I can't shake that feeling off.
It's also clear that the whole thing was written, recorded and released within a couple of months. It would be downright impossible for Murdoch to ever write anything genuinely subpar - he's one of the most perfectly pleasant songwriters around and even in his weaker moments there's still something thoroughly heartwarming in the way he gently plays with his melodies. He makes irresistible melodies sound like the easiest thing in the world and it always works to some extent. There is no way you can even remotely dislike If You're Feeling Sinister if you're in the slightest into Murdoch's tropes or the whole "shy bookish university boys blushing hard about shy bookish university girls" vibe Belle and Sebastian's early days were rife with. in general, Thus, If You're Feeling Sinister is a perfectly fine album in what it sets out to do - twee indie pop songs with a sharp wit and lyrics with hidden twists for the observant listener - but taken as songs, one-by-one, its batting average isn't particularly striking. Most of the big hitters are encountered right from the start, with "The Stars of Track and Field" being the album's definitive song that aims to be the big opening woah moment to impress from the first step and "Seeing Other People" and "Me and the Major" offering the album's strongest melodies and memorable hooks, but after that it becomes a series of thoroughly cosy but not particularly memorable songs - and I wouldn't necessarily raise those three highlights either anywhere near the band at their best. It's obvious that despite its humble beginnings Tigermilk got the best parts of the early material, and wheeling out If You're Feeling Sinister so soon gives the impression of needless rushing before they had the right material in tow.
I can still readily admit to enjoying If You're Feeling Sinister and you can't deny the growth the band exhibit here. Even if there's no flights of fancy present as a possibly intentional desire to keep both feet firmly in the ground, the way If You're Feeling Sinister goes about its concepts and songwriting tropes feels more focused. It takes a step away from Tigermilk's still a little untamed imagination into something consciously more carefully laid out: there's many a moment here where it sounds like a band hard at work trying to up their game. The intent is there, it's just simply the songs that let it down. As much as I listen to this, I still struggle to remember most of it by the time the album has quieted down; the latter half is particularly guilty about this to the point that it's remained as a list of titles with barely a trace left in my mind (for what it's worth, the title track is by far the best song in the final stretch solely on the strength of its incredibly simple but deadly effective title drop moment). This probably comes off harsher than it is in reality because Sinister is an alright album without any really genuine downsides, and it's full of aspects that make early Belle and Sebastian so charming. There just isn't that much meat around its twee bones when compared to everything else released by the band.
John Frusciante
has always been good with his internet releases for fans: his
scattering of free downloadable albums are outtakes for the hardcore
followers, but they've been notably insightful ones. Renoise Tracks 2009-2011
is ostensibly a selection of songs from the period when Frusciante
first abandoned his guitar-oriented direction and moved towards a more
free-form electronic sound, billed as practice rounds from when he was
still messing around with his new tools. That's the surprising thing
about it; this sounds far more like Frusciante is already comfortable
with what he's doing and has specific direction in mind, acting like a
prelude to his IDM/acid house-oriented Trickfinger
records more than his somewhat messy set of electronic albums under his
own name. One of Frusciante's electronic sound's bigger downfalls is
the aimlessness they often fall victim to - and yet, this set of early
attempts sounds much more like an intentional album than the ones that
actually had commercial releases.
Renoise Tracks strikes
real gold with "Unending 126 Mix", which sounds like what
electro-Frusciante has the potential to be but with a focus that
material of its ilk generally lacks. High-energy beats come together
with a careful application of his guitar and some nice synth samples,
with Frusciante's voice bringing them together. It sounds like what
you'd expect an IDM track from a rock songwriter to sound like, and it
really works. The rest of Renoise Tracks are
slight variations on the same themes, altering largely on whether it
emphasises the beats or Frusciante himself. It's where you get the only
real notion that these were originally intended just for Frusciante
himself, uncertain whether to go for a fully instrumental route echoing
his inspirations or trying to express his old ways of writing through
new means, and finding ways to bring the two together. It's enjoyable to
a surprising degree and it's strange how the actual albums released
chronologically after these songs didn't develop further on the ideas
here.
Renoise Tracks leaves you wanting
for something developed from the ideas presented here, even if it
doesn't exactly leave you wanting to come back to it frequently either.
It's a decent listen but only kicks into a really memorable gear
occasionally. Yet, for the time it plays it's engaging and even outside
its better moments it has a bunch of neat ideas which maybe could have
crossed over onto something really good with a little more development.
For what is effectively a group of discarded demos, it's unexpectedly
solid.
Disc One: 1) Better the Devil You Know;
2) The Loco-Motion; 3) I Should Be So Lucky; 4) Step Back in Time; 5)
Shocked; 6) What Do I Have to Do; 7) Wouldn’t Change a Thing; 8) Hand in
Your Heart; 9) Especially for You (with Jason Donovan); 10) Got to Be
Certain; 11) Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi; 12) Give Me Just a Little More
Time; 13) Never Too Late; 14) Tears on My Pillow; 15) Celebration Disc Two: 1) I Believe in You; 2) Can’t Get You Out of My Head; 3) Love at First Sight; 4) Slow; 5) On a Night Like This; 6) Spinning Around; 7) Kids (with Robbie Williams); 8) Confide in Me;
9) In Your Eyes; 10) Please Stay; 11) Red Blooded Woman; 12) Giving You
Up; 13) Chocolate; 14) Come Into My World; 15) Put Yourself in My
Place; 16) Did It Again; 17) Breathe; 18) Where the Wild Roses Grow
(with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds)
Yes, there's a lot of cheese. But also a whole load of solid gold pop, and a lot more unexpected gems than you'd expect from a surface glance to Kylie's overlooked career.
Kylie Minogue often finds herself placed into the guilty
pleasure bin even by people who openly admit to liking other popular
mainstream pop. She started her musical career as the poster girl for
Stock, Aitken & Waterman and became synonymous with the particular
type of cheese that 80s synth pop was made out of, before transitioning
to a campier glamour associated with the corniest of gay discos –
neither areas which can claim to have particularly high musical esteem.
The brief transitional phase between the two where she tried to prove
she was a artist to be taken seriously flopped: only a few ever bought
into it and even fewer remember it. She hasn’t had the critical
re-evaluation that other big pop stars have had in the recent years and
while she has the power to still make the occasional commercial splash,
it’s mainly just her fan base that pays attention to her. While, say, Madonna
has had so many iconic eras and hits over the years that people
recognise decades worth of work from her, Kylie has largely been
relegated to be the girl who sang “I Should Be So Lucky”. Maybe “Can’t
Get You Out of My Head” if you’re lucky.
Ultimate Kylie
isn’t the cash-grab seasonal stocking filler it might appear as at a
glance but rather, it’s Kylie’s vindication: the proof that her
discography is just as hit-filled (quality-wise even if not necessarily
commercially at all times) as any other of her more seriously taken
peers. The two discs stretch through her entire career up until 2004 and
what becomes apparent pretty quickly is that the large scale is
absolutely necessary. Not just because you’re presented with one
instantly memorable and legitimately good song after another throughout
the tracklist, but because the two disc format gives it a really good
split. The first disc is devoted entirely to her 80s SAW era while the
second disc is devoted to the 90s and beyond. The separation of the
instantly dated 80s sound from the rest of the material acts in favour
of both the SAW era as well as the rest of the music: you don’t get
productional whiplashes and placing the 80s material on its own allows
for it to be judged within its own terms.
The first disc is
incredibly dated - far beyond the occasional trend giveaways of the
second set - but if you can get past that (or maybe even love the sound,
like myself) it’s a joy to listen: each song is so mercilessly
hook-driven and shamelessly hit-seeking that you can’t help but admire.
It also makes it feel a little criminal that it’s “I Should Be So Lucky”
that gained such immortality when you’ve got such a towering classic as
“Better the Devil You Know” awaiting: it opens the compilation and it’s
such a great belter of a track with a tour de force of a chorus.
Sometimes the factory-line nature of the operation surfaces a bit more
obviously than other times, with a definite audible gap between the
legitimately great and entertainingly cheesy songs. Particularly by the
end of the disc the compilation starts to falter with the diabolically
ill-advised 50s throwback “Tears on My Pillow” and a serviceable but a
thoroughly pointless cover of Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration” ending
the party on a dual bum note. Still, if you’ve ever had an affinity for
the decade’s dated plastic cheese shine, the first disc is surprisingly
good fun.
The
second disc is the real heart of the collection, moving from corny fun
to genuinely excellent. It swings more wildly between sounds and styles
from knowingly camp to futuristic cool, but it keeps the quality coming.
It even incorporates a few collaborations where Kylie is more support
than the star: Nick Cave’s “Where the Wild Roses Grow” is a
bewildering end to the general dancefloor joy of the entire album but is
incredibly pleasing as a curveball that leaves you guessing just as you
thought you got her figured out (and it is a marvellous song). The
compilation also helps shed some light to her early 90s albums where she
tried to escape her pop image and brings forth songs like “Breathe” and the breath-taking “Confide in Me”: the latter, in particular really deserves more kudos than it has, sounding
completely unlike anything else here and bringing forth drama and
tension Kylie has rarely displayed. The futuro-glitz trifecta of “Can’t
Get You Out of My Head”, “Slow” and “Come Into My World” have aged
marvellously and see Kylie finally finding a real voice for herself.
Only the throwaway R&B bandwagon hop “Red Blooded Woman” really hits
the brakes along the way, though it’s also a surprise how badly the
comeback hit “Spinning Around” has dated: it revitalised her career when
it dropped but several years later and surrounded by the singles that
came since, it comes off as awfully pedestrian and paper thin.
It’s not just the music that’s a greatly positive surprise on Ultimate Kylie, even
the compilation in itself has been pulled together so well that it’s a
genuinely pleasing. You can always tell when a compilation is a quick
cash-in and when it’s been crafted with actual attention, and Ultimate Kylie
falls squarely in the latter department. The era split is a genius
decision in itself for reasons described before and that there’s equal
weight given to all eras rather than trying to pretend any of the less
well received eras never happened is always a great thing (only the
non-inclusion of the Manic Street Preachers aided “Some Kind of
Bliss” is a little mysterious and disappointing). The liner notes in the
booklet and the photography detailing the eras make it feel like you’re
holding a celebration of a legacy. The attitude of giving a damn goes
as far as the token new song “I Believe in You”: what could have been
just a quick leftover track included solely for promotional purposes has
somehow ended up becoming the best damn song in the entire two discs.
It’s cool, groovy, stylish, futuristic and absolutely impeccable both in
production and performance. You don’t really have to wonder why when
you look at the credits and realise the song was written by Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears and Babydaddy, who were having their own
do-no-wrong golden year in 2004. The other new song, “Giving You Up”,
is a little less successful but I readily admit to generally being left a
little cold by most things touched by Xenomania, who produced the song.
Kudos to my sister then, who was clearly desperate for
present ideas during the 2004 Christmas season and decided to gift this to
me after a 30-second exchange between us about Kylie having a bunch of
good songs following an advert for Ultimate Kylie on TV. I don’t think
this would have found its way in my collection otherwise but I’m glad it
did – there’s a lot of quality pop scattered across the two discs here.
1) A Doubt; 2) An Exercise; 3) Time Runs Out; 4) Loss; 5) Unchanging; 6) The Mirror; 7) A Loop; 8) Wishing; 9) Far Away; 10) The Days Have Turned; 11) Helical; 12) The Will to Death
The first of the grand rush of 2004, and it starts with a melancholy, autumnal collection of understated melodies.
From the late 90s onwards Frusciante, now back in full health, was bursting with inspiration and the desire to keep playing and creating music. Within half a decade he had already managed to amass a fairly reputable amount of music between the Red Hot Chili Peppers and his restarted solo career, but no one could have expected what was to come next. Only a couple of months after the release of Shadows Collide with People in early 2004 Frusciante announced that he was going to release six more records in six months during the latter half of the very same year: all brand new music, either under his own name or in new projects spearheaded by him. The real shocker is that the madman actually did it - apart from having to delay the last album of the bunch by a month, Frusciante did good on his word and delivered the same amount of albums within a year that most artists take at least a decade to release these days. While most of the songs were written and recorded during the same initial sessions and later grouped together based on the general sound, it doesn't really take anything away from the achievement - especially given the general level of quality he kept up throughout.
The Will to Death was the first album to follow the announcement, and it's a great introduction to the project overall because it shares its general aesthetic choices with the records to follow. The overall concept isn't too dissimilar from Shadows Collide with People musically, and sees Frusciante delivering relatively conventional rock songs with frequent keyboard flourishes and layered arrangements, so it makes for a reasonable bridge. The production, however, is the big change. All of Frusciante's 2004 rush were recorded in his own home studio, produced by himself with limited overdubs or polish. The albums sound like live takes of Frusciante and his small backing band playing together in the same room, and the sound quality is warm and homely; not quite raw and lo-fi, but distant from any shiny studio glamour. They come across like a glimpse into a private rehearsal space, Frusciante playing right next to you in a personal setting.
The Will to Death's particular characteristic of its own is that it's a very solemn album: the original June release date is completely inappropriate with a record like this that's more at home during gray, rainy days (insert joke about British summers). Compared to the jubilance of creativity that To Record Only Water for Ten Days or Shadows Collide with People were brimming with, where Frusciante sounded happy to just be around playing music, on The Will to Death he's serious and world-weary. The sparse piano-lead "The Mirror" is one of the bleakest songs found on Frusciante's albums and while it's the most overt in this nature, much of The Will to Death is marked by an air of melancholy hanging around; to a point that it sounds practically peaceful in how it's resigned to its own sadness. The album name is a bit of an obvious-in-hindsight giveaway, but the point gets hammered down throughout - on "Unchanging" Frusciante calmly and soothingly sings lines like "it's a pleasure to die, a pleasure to be gone" and "life gave me up and I have no control" and sounds practically relieved while doing so, and "The Days Have Turned" is the most self-loathing set of lyrics Frusciante has written set to a gentle shuffling beat and pretty, minimal guitar. Even the brief instrumental "Helical", as pretty as it is, sounds like it has a sorrowful heart despite its external smile.
That's not to say that The Will to Death is a quiet record. Uncommonly for a Frusciante album it's very much a band record in the sense that the usual rock band trio setup is clearly and powerfully present, and there's a lot of explosive moments scattered throughout where Frusciante kicks up the volume - right from the beginning in fact, with the drum roll intro of "A Doubt" launching into a wistfully chiming guitar riff, and the initial meditative verses pave way for Frusciante eventually going all-out in the song's crescendo, his guitar roaring and voice soaring. Because of the more intimate sound these moments jump out particularly starkly: it's ultimately a production job that favours more mellow moments by default and so when things increase in strength you can practically feel it, such as the verses of "An Exercise" (which flips the usual quiet verses/loud choruses formula upside down) or the hypnotic and appropriately named "A Loop" which grows to a nearly furious intensity. This happens to the best effect in "Loss": despite its name, it's actually (musically) one of the most directly positive moments on the album and its triumphant organ-powered grand finale is one of the album's few moments of genuine light, a Shadows Collide with People moment interpreted in a humbler setting but just as powerfully. And when The Will to Death does dial it down, the results tend to be universally excellent: they're close for comfort but bittersweet in tone, full of the weariness of a man who's been through a lot and is best at channeling that through beautifully simple melody work: the aforementioned "The Days Have Turned" and in particular the understated but devastatingly pretty title track are simple but sublime songs that do not make a big deal about themselves, but have the emotional resonance to cut through any need to make them more complicated with no good reason to.
The Will to Death, in general, follows that very example. It's by and far the least flashy of Frusciante's solo records - even the largely acoustic-focused Curtains has an element of showmanship to it on the very account that it makes a big point about being The Intimate and Stripped-Down Record, and all the others make their presence known very clearly in ways as various as their styles. The Will to Death in comparison is the guy in the corner keeping to himself. It doesn't have Frusciante's flashiest solos or grandest arrangements, and its quiet darkness is really only obvious in hindsight once you begin to read the lyrics - musically it's practically serene in places. But it finds its strengths elsewhere. It's in the lovely guitar work, in Frusciante's vulnerable delivery, in the subtle but touching melodies that leave an impression behind without realising it at first and it's in the cosy, warm production that ties it all together. It's not an album that features many of Frusciante's all-time great classics (I'd pick "Loss" and "The Will to Death" definitely if I were to make a list, "A Doubt" possibly), but it's a perfect example of a record where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because when all those individual elements are brought together it creates something arresting and resonating. It's arguably Frusciante's most beautiful solo record, but in a way that's not completely apparent from the initial listens. But as it grows, it becomes arresting in its modest grace.
1) Acts of Man; 2) Winter Dies; 3) Small Mountain; 4) Core of Nature; 5) Fortune; 6) Rulers, Ruling All Things; 7) Children of the Grounds; 8) Bring Down; 9) The Horn; 10) The Courage of Others; 11) In the Ground
Is it classic folk rock romanticism anymore when it's all so bleak and dark? Warm acoustic tones meet impenetrable sadness.
Pray for all to end / And silence be all / Now the joy has burned out and it’s gone / But I don’t know where
If Midlake
albums were a continuous tale, here’s what the story so far would be. A
group of people decided to abandon the trappings of modern life and the
mysterious monocle men of Bamnan and Slivercork, shedding away modern technology and finding a new peaceful existence in the wild frontiers. The Trials of Van Occupanther would tell their story - of a rural life not without its hardships, but more idyllic in its harmonious, natural way. The Courage of Others
brings with it the darkest winter. The cold world is cruel and where
once were many, now only some remain. In the middle of the forest,
huddled around a lonely campfire, a group of men sing sad laments,
knowing in their hearts they’ll likely never see the spring again.
The Courage of Others mostly continues where The Trials of Van Occupanther
left off with its rootsier folk rock revival inspiration, but
nonetheless there’s a huge gap between the two albums in how that sound
is approached. The general feel is once again intimate and warm in its
core but rich and layered in its arrangements, but this time the music’s
heart has been covered by an impenetrable bleakness: not enough to be a
thoroughly dark album but there is next to no hope or joy found
here. The lyrics are filled with laments for lost opportunities and a
desire for things to either change to something else completely or to
simply just end, and the music seems to have never even heard of a major
chord. The lush strings and horns of Van Occupanther are gone
and replaced with a lone flute, quietly singing sorrowful melodies
throughout the album while the sparingly used, piercing electric guitars
and the band’s now-trademark layered vocal harmonies push the momentum
onwards. It’s an album that has lost sight of the light at the end of
the tunnel and sounds understatedly gorgeous as it fumbles around in the
dark.
It
is, unsurprisingly, a slow burner of an album. The Courage of Others is
not an album of big stand-out moments like “Roscoe” or “Balloon Maker”,
or even ones that make a bigger splash within the album itself. “Acts
of Man” distills the essence of the album in its very first three
minutes so effectively that you could claim it’s the album’s signature
moment, and the (relative) energy and more notable electric guitar use
of “Children of the Grounds”, “The Horn” and “Rulers, Ruling All Things”
make them pop out by default, but by and far The Courage of Others
doesn’t bother with instantly recognisable hits. The songs largely
blend together into one, 40-minute tragic ballad, each sequence clearly
distinct in their details but not enough for me to be able to associate
them with the actual song names. The individual elements are all lovely -
Tim Smith’s still-gorgeous voice, the masterful vocal harmonies, the
intricate guitars, the perfectionistically arranged additional
flourishes - but each song uses them so similarly that separating them
from one another requires a lot of effort.
That slight
non-descriptness of it all does deduct points away from the album and
out of the original Midlake trilogy this is the obvious weak link. But
don’t let that brush you away from it. The Courage of Others
takes a long, patient time to work its charms but it eventually will -
it’s not suitable for all occasions, but
for a specific mood that begs for this kind of acoustic folk rock with a
soul full of sorrow, it does the job most wonderfully. There’s a
strange kind of comfort to its melancholy and a striking loveliness to
its craft - something that will get completely lost in the wrong
context. Given the attention and right mindset though, The Courage of Others
reveals its strengths and what makes it unique from its two more
universally lovable older siblings. Where it lacks in songwriting it
emphasises the mood, and to Midlake’s credit they get fairly far with
it.
1) Sweet Little Kitten; 2) Summertime Cowboy; 3) New Light of Tomorrow; 4) Sunset Drive; 5) My World; 6) City Lights; 7) Gasoline Girl; 8) Rainbow Flows; 9) Sleep Tight Tiger; 10) Mean Street; 11) The Good Man; 12) The Man Who Flew Away
Less a band here and more a group of people under one producer's varied vision, but the gorgeous atmospheric touch and impossibly sweet melodies are already present.
Husky Rescue's recipe is clear and recognisable. There's the wispy
vocals, the atmospheric dream pop production and the unimitable Nordic
charm that ties it all together and gives it that extra little magic. They make catchy melodies for the
moments when you watch the sun set in the horizon, when you're driving
on an empty road at 1AM or when you're enjoying your personal quiet
with your headphones on. Some things have changed along the years but
you can always count on the same identifiable elements to be there, like
a reliable comrade who's always perfect to take along when a particular
mood strikes. Those elements are on Country Falls too.
Where Country Falls - their debut - is a little different is that at
this stage Husky Rescue are still closer to a producer's project, not
a band or a collaboration. Everything's still taking shape, various pieces swapped around to see which fits the spot better. Rather than
a set group of people going for a singular vision, this is head man Marko
Nyberg's playground and he enlists numerous helping hands to stretch out the same central
stylistic idea - soundtrack-esque pop - into various directions. Future lead singer Reeta-Leena
Vestman (née Korhola) is only one of the various voices (male and
female) found throughout the album, with no single vocal identity establishing itself as the lead across the variety of songs. Which is apt, because the songs themselves
vary: you can find the more obvious blueprints to their next couple of
records throughout Country Falls but there's also excursions to wholly
different places, from instrumental chillout to perky sugar-laden
melodies and a song dominated by a long spoken word piece. The
atmospheric production is the connecting factor between the songs and
prevents the album from being more disjointed than it could in theory
be: if there's one feeling Country Falls wants to leave you with, it's
one of being surrounded by a cloud of smooth sounds.
That slight disjointedness that peeks out periodically is both part of Country Falls' charm and
the reason why it feels a little askew from the rest of the group's
catalogue. Its air is rich with turn-of-millennium chillout wave and that makes it easy to slot the album into a particular place in time and
geography. That, together with the variety in
songs and singers, means it lacks the Husky Rescue -specific identity the
later albums would have; something like Country Falls could have come
from so many directions around the same time, and there's a direct
lineage between this and peak chilltronica like Röyksopp's Melody AM.
But the same approach also brings many great things that the band - when
they later actually became a band - wouldn't have sought to create later on.
"Summertime Cowboy" is the brightest, perkiest pop moment ever released under the
Husky Rescue name, a song for summer afternoons rather than evenings,
and its sunshine is absolutely irresistable. "New Light of Tomorrow" is
a marvellous piece of soothing melancholy that would only need a
little more prominent guitar part in order to have found a place in any
respectably moody euro-rock album of the time; Sam Shingler's vocals
work perfectly in it as well, to a point that some of the song's effect could have been
lost with a singer more in line with the standard Husky Rescue style. The 8-minute showpiece finale "The Good Man" is the closest the album comes to nailing the initial soundtrack-leaning concept perfectly; it begins with a slow build-up lead by a spoken word narrative and once it's done, the music becomes the storyteller, bit by bit becoming a grand, dynamic showpiece growing in intensity and greatness, like a great piece of score depicting a long scene growing in scope each second. In the tracklist it appears after a period of long silence
following "Mean Street" like a bonus track that found itself attached
into the main tracklist, but the idea of it being apart from the actual album at any point
feels so strange given it's one of its most impressive musical
statements.
What these curveball moments happen to demonstrate is that at this
stage, Husky Rescue might be a little too chill. The template for the
rest of the album is mellow and suave, and frequently that's great.
"City Lights", "Sweet Little Kitten", "Rainbow Flows", "Sunset Drive" make a reasonable backbone for Country Falls; a couple of them, namely
the blissful musical cuddle "Sweet Little Kitten" and "City Lights"
which might as well be the singular definition of Husky Rescue, are even
among the album's best songs. Still, despite the minor variations in the
formula it can get a little too relaxed, to the point that you end up
craving more of those moments where Nyberg and the gang stretch their wings.
If you're in the mood for being enveloped by a pillow of smooth sounds it's great, but particularly the back half
of the album gets very, very mellow in a way that's in danger of becoming overly so, before "The Good Man" wakes things up (it's
then probably ironic that the literal lullaby "Sleep Tight Tiger" is my
favourite of this stretch, but it's just too cosy not to fall in love
with). It's not a criticism per se, more an observation - that atmosphere is what drew
me to Country Falls in the first place, but if you're not in the right mind set for it the album can leave much less of an impression behind.
The next few albums would see Husky Rescue become more of a
group that creates music together and through that their sound would
grow more dynamic, and that style would come to define them forevermore;
even if eventually Nyberg would deconstruct and rebuild the group again
as a more electronic outfit. Country Falls then is probably the purest
incarnation of the initial idea behind Husky Rescue: sweet pop songs
with a richly textured sound that would evoke majestic landscapes in
mind, with the world and the soul resting easy within them. It's done
with skill and charm, and it's easily one of the better records of the
particular stylistic wave it's ended up becoming associated with. Certainly production-wise it's a marvel: it really shines through a good set of headphones and in that form you really get a sense of the atmosphere taking you to places. And
yet, while its heart yearns for soothing sounds it's the parts where it
goes somewhere wholly different and lively that leave the strongest impressions, and
that contrast leaves it a little less than a sum of its parts.
If I sound a little conflicted on what to make of it, then that's what I am: it's impossible to deny Country Falls' charms and strengths - it's a very, very good album - but at the same time it's the Husky Rescue album I listen to the least these days because it lacks the focus the others have.
Still, play Country Falls on a late summer evening when the sun goes down, and it'll feel like the most perfect record for that moment in time.
1) Circuitry of the Wolf; 2) Chinaberry Tree; 3) Why Are You Looking Grave; 4) Fox Cub; 5) Apocalypso; 6) Special; 7) The Zookeeper’s Boy;
8) A Dark Design; 9) Saviours of Jazz Ballet (Fear Me, December); 10)
An Envoy to the Open Fields; 11) Small Ambulance; 12) The Seething Rain
Weeps for You (Uda Pruda); 13) White Lips Kissed; 14) Louise, Louisa
Increasing the quirkiness and the ambition, maybe a little too much.
I feel like people tag Mew with the “prog-” prefix a little
too easily just because there’s been a few funny time signatures or
sudden mid-song style switches here and there. On the other hand, And the Glass Handed Kites feels like a response to all the prog-pop buzz people were throwing in Mew’s way after Frengers had blown them up to international fame. You want prog-pop? Here you go, you have some prog-pop. You can have ALL OF IT.
Mew
haven’t really switched their game here, per se. Their indie rock
shenanigans still owe to both dream pop and shoegaze in equal amounts
and they flick back and forth in the spectrum between muscular, loud
rock and ethereal, delicate beauty effortlessly. There’s ambition and
boldness, songs sounding like small galaxies, the surreal lyrics
conjuring imagery that sounds otherwordly when sung by Jonas Bjerre’s
falsetto. What’s changed is the delivery. And the Glass Handed Kites
is a song sequence, a collection of chapters seamlessly segued into
eachother. Chapters - not songs. Unlike most similar albums, And the Glass Handed Kites
isn’t just a run of songs quickly mixed together, but this is a case
where songs literally bleed into eachother - a track might have changed
and you could never notice, or a song’s radically kicked into another
gear and it’s a great surprise to find out it’s still the same song.
It’s full of quirks, turns and twists. It’s actually really thrilling:
the first few listens, and every time you return to the album after a
long time, are genuinely exciting, a wild ride that just keeps going and
fills you with awe. And the Glass Handed Kites puts every other segued album I’ve heard into shame.
The thrill does wear out, yes. And the Glass Handed Kites
is so focused on its grandeur that digging into it deeper, you actually
find a little less than what you expected. The song cycle is all that
matters and the tracklist has been crafted with that in mind: short
interludes, songs that bridge the gaps brilliantly but aren’t as
developed or rewarding when listening to them out of context, extended
ambient breaks added as outros to help with the segues. You’ll find a
better number of more exhilerating songs on other Mew albums, songs that sound great in and out of their mother context - And the Glass Handed Kites
lives by the long player code so devotedly that its pieces are
definitely less than its whole. The latter half of the album suffers the
most from this: the entire four-song stretch from “Saviours of Jazz
Ballet” until “White Lips Kissed” is effectively really impressive
fragments layered one after another to create a glorious run of pomp and
triumph that crumbles apart completely if you ever find yourself
listening to any of the songs on their own. If you’re an album listener
like me, that’s great - it’s not too much of an issue - but definite
trade-offs have been made between depth and surface continuity here and
the more you dig into the album, the more it rears its head.
There’s
still plenty of excellent material that can take scrutiny though, and
in particular the first half presents another four-song stretch of note,
only this time one that’s far more impressive. Putting it bluntly: the
“Fox Cub” / “Apocalypso” / “Special” / “The Zookeeper’s Boy” sequence is
not only the most impressive run in Mew’s catalogue, but one of the
most phenomenal song stretches I’ve come across in general. The quiet
“Fox Cub” serves as an unassuming intro before the steadily speeding
drum beat begins to take shape and launches into space. The dark rush of
“Apocalypso” blasts in with its metal-lite riffs and drum havoc,
suddenly morphing into the sharp-stabbing groove of “Special”, the most
straightforward song on the album and even it has a habit of freaking
out and breaking down its four-to-the-floor rhythm unexpectedly across
the verses. “Special” segues perfectly into the colossal “The
Zookeeper’s Boy”, a larger than life and starry-eyed half ballad/half
anthem that finishes the chapter with beautiful fireworks and towering
triumph. They are all not only humongous and superb songs but they flow
into each other so perfectly and awe-inspiringly. The concept, the
execution and the craft combine gloriously: it’s where every single
thing you want and expect from And the Glass Handed Kites comes on display.
Other
cuts as well become familiar highlights soon - most notably “White Lips
Kissed” which twitches the ballad drama dial even further and the
elegantly swerving power pop nugget “Why Are You Looking Grave”. And the Glass Handed Kites
is a really good album, really great even at places. In many ways it’s
an essential Mew album and a general must-hear - if anything, it
certainly drills down the band’s sound and ethos perfectly. On the other
hand though, I only go back to it in bursts: a series of listens over a
few days that fill me with awe and love, before slowly moving onto
other albums (Mew or not) for a more consistent dose of excitement. And the Glass Handed Kites
is, to repeat a simile, very much a musical thrill ride and like thrill
rides in general, you go through it too many times in a row and it
loses the wow factor. The curves and slopes become too familiar and the
lulls become predictable. So, I wheel the album out a few times a year,
get obsessed, fall in love all over again and then realise that beyond
the “Fox Cub”-”Zookeeper” cycle, Mew’s best songwriting is found on
their other albums. It’s an incredibly impressive record, nonetheless -
filled with ambition and Mew’s magical touch.
1) 1985; 2) The Love of Richard Nixon; 3) Empty Souls; 4) A Song for Departure; 5) I Live to Fall Asleep; 6) To Repel Ghosts; 7) Emily; 8) Glasnost; 10) Solitude Sometimes Is; 11) Fragments; 12) Cardiff Afterlife
Introspective and calm, the normally fiery band lock themselves in the studio and purge their demons out via production wizardry - unexpectedly creating one of their purest, finest moments.
The sadly now defunct Finnish music review site RockMusica was one of
the places that gave the mixedly received Lifeblood a glowingly positive
review. The review concluded with a short statement about the album’s
nature, one that has for whatever reason made a permanent home in my
head to the point that I wish I had written it. Quoting, paraphrased:
Lifeblood is an album where three men first looked at themselves from a
mirror, then they looked at each other and finally proceeded to write an album
about what they saw.
Lifeblood is an obvious oddball in the Manic Street Preachers
catalogue. They have always been a band who have believed in the power
of rock music and the almighty guitar - not necessarily a bad thing as
James Dean Bradfield is one of the best guitarists around - but on
Lifeblood the familiar Bradfield riffs and melodies have been pushed
under layers of keyboards and synthesizers, the amount and scale of his
traditional solos have been suppressed to almost nothing and whilst the
guitar is a constant presence, it’s used to a much subtler effect to the
point that few of the tracks only reveal their guitar parts if you
really pay attention to what’s going on in the background. The sound of
the album is generally cold, detached - you could argue it’s sterile -
much like the pure, clear white that’s prominent in the artwork and
which the band wrapped themselves in during the era. In some tracks it’s
hard to tell whether Sean Moore is behind the drumkit or instead
working his beats in front of a computer program. From a band who often
seem almost embarrassed to try something completely different, Lifeblood
is a bizarre recording. It’s no wonder that it’s become one of the
albums that the band tries to hide away from public sight, talking about
it slightly derivatively if at all and when they do actually give it a
compliment, they mumble through it sheepishly. It’s not an album that
makes sense.
It is slightly ironic then that out of all their albums, Lifeblood might just be their most personal one.
As a band, the Manics have always thrived on reactions. Much of
their discography can be interpreted as a reaction to something: whether
against their work just prior (Know Your Enemy, The Holy Bible to an
extent) or the personal context around them (Everything Must Go, This Is
My Truth Tell Me Yours). Such a reactionary attitude is part of what
makes the band so great: it’s lead to a stylistically varied discography
that’s a joy to dig in when you first become a fan, never knowing what
to really expect. But in this context, Lifeblood is the odd one out. It
doesn’t fit the cycle of action and reaction. It was recorded and
released a short time after the band had spent time taking a
retrospective look at their career and closing one chapter of it through
the release of a greatest hits and a rarities compilation. They were,
in a way, back to square one.
And so, the band decided to break free from their past. They ignored
their legacy as well as any outside influence or opinions, focusing
purely on their instincts, almost like going through a purging process.
This included the greatest aspect of their history that hovered around
them, the ever-following shadow of Richey Edwards. “Cardiff Afterlife” that
closes Lifeblood was meant to be the final farewell to Richey at the
time, and the song’s abrupt ending which cuts the key melody like it had
suddenly hit a wall was meant to represent placing a full stop to the
whole affair: to firmly close the chapter, stop focusing on the past and
to move on. These days the sentiment obviously rings slightly hollow
given how many of the subsequent albums deliberately invoked the band’s
past in one way or another, but at the time, according to their own
words, it was what they needed to do in order to continue existing -
hence the album’s title.
Amusingly, for an album that was meant to bid farewell to the past
its central themes are centered around history. Lifeblood is an album
about loss and the significance of time passing. Wire’s lyrics are full
of contemplation about life going by and changing things, whether it’s
personal (reminiscing about the band’s beginning in “1985” or reflecting
on how long it’s been since those days and how much one has changed
during the years in “Glasnost”) or elaborating on the stories of others
whose actions have been lost in time (“The Love of Richard Nixon” makes a
point about Nixon’s positive work being forgotten after the Watergate
scandal while “Emily” comments on how Wire feels Emmeline Pankhurst has
been forgotten in way of feminist icons he finds less important). Wire’s
frequent buzzline at the time was that Lifeblood was “The Holy Bible
for the 35-year-olds”: dark and troubled, but replacing the fury and
anger of young men with the world-weary desire to let go and move on as
felt by a grown man who’s witnessed that nothing he says has no effect
to anyone but himself.
At this point it’s probably a good
time for me to talk about the personal context for this album. This is a
five-star, 10/10 album for
me: by my personal definition, perfect top-score albums like this are
ones that have had a deep, personal impact on me at one point in time
and which always bring up that significance every time I listen to them.
The gist is, I can’t talk about Lifeblood without that personal angle.
Manic Street Preachers are one of my favourite groups of all time - once
upon a time I could have said with confidence that they were the very
favourite, in fact (and that “drop” in ranking isn’t a slight against
the band). I became a fan of theirs sometime in the early 00s and
Lifeblood was the first new studio release they released after that. My
first touches of stalking what artists do through the internet are
related to Lifeblood - hearing radio rips of new songs that UK fans
posted on forums I lurked to, checking several websites for any new
nuggets of info, etc. If there was a single moment where it became
obvious that I had found something personal and special with the Manics,
it was the joyous on-the-spur bouncing that happened in my room to the
chorus of “1985” during the very first time I started playing the album
on the cool winter’s day it was released.
But why Lifeblood still matters is that it’s an album that never
lost that same spark for me. If anything, over the years it’s become
something much more. It’s an album that’s been with me through thick and
thin, through good and the bad and through all the changes I’ve been
through. It’s become a close friend. It got to the point that when I
started spotting new details on these songs that I had heard a countless
times before, I started to feel a sense of overjoyed discovery no
matter how insignificant that detail might have been in the greater
scheme of things. With each new discovery it felt like I was hearing the
songs brand new once again, and somehow they felt even closer to me
than ever before.
It’s appropriate, because Lifeblood is an album built on details. As
mentioned earlier, it’s an album that places heavy emphasis on
production. It’s studio-shiny, crystal clear and precise to the point of
perfection. It’s also layered like crazy. Each song contains countless
elements, from the most obvious ones to small background moments that
never really make much fuss about themselves but which flesh out
important spaces within the songs: miniature melodies, background
textures, mood-guiding snippets. It’s an album where each minute has
been cared for with a perfectionist’s touch and a golden ear, not a
sound out of place or meaningless. One of those background elements is,
surprisingly, Bradfield’s guitar. Like I noted before, the key
instruments of Lifeblood lie in keyboards and synthesizers, from shining
cold piano to synthesized patterns. Bradfield’s guitar gets to rip out a
few, strictly focused solos every now and then, but most of the
six-stringer’s presence is in rhythmic strums and faint melodies rather
than in the usual Manics riffs. If anything, however, it emphasises
Bradfield’s skill - intentionally creating subtler elements and filling
the gaps between other instruments rather than the other way around
allows his talent shine differently, showing off his arranger’s chops.
Despite not being a key element of the album, Lifeblood contains some of
Bradfield’s best guitar parts.
All this - the details, the feeling of loss and world moving on and
the personal impact - is contained in twelve 3-4 minute glacial pop/rock
elegies. All 12 songs of Lifeblood are immaculate, immense songs, many
of which easily belong to the proud company of Manics’ greatest moments
and the rest wouldn’t be far off. Despite the everpresent melancholy and
weariness in the sound, there is an audible contentment running
throughout the album - the band may be working outside their comfort
zone, but they sound perfectly at ease being there, playing with a
clarity of vision and natural flow the likes of which has rarely been
present in their albums. New things are tried and everything works out
excellently, be it James bringing out an e-bow for the first time
(“Empty Souls”), experimenting writing music first and coming up with
words afterwards contrary to the band’s usual working method (the rather
more abstractly worded “Always/Never”), or - of all things - bringing a
slap bass into a Manic Street Preachers song (also “Always/Never”, and
for the record it’s brilliant).
The list of highlights goes on. “1985” is a Manics classic through
and through, an absolutely incredible anthem that resonates with the
power of a band at their greatest. “I Live to Fall Asleep” is tender,
graceful and heartachingly wistful. The twinkling “Solitude Sometimes
Is” builds bit-by-bit in intensity, growing from an introspective
whisper to a shout against the world. “Fragments” is a hazy winter’s
daydream, slowly bouncing along its jittery percussions and loopy organ
in a hypnotic manner until it breaks into a swooning soar. “The Love of
Richard Nixon” is a bizarre twist on a pop song, distant emotionally
from the rest of the album as well as a shocker of a lead single (and
honestly, the utterly wrong choice), but once the off-kilter
double-tracked vocals and synthetic thrust wear off their shock factor,
it reveals itself to be an earworm of an arrow hitting straight into a
bullseye. “To Repel Ghosts” brings back the edge and the fury with an
appropriately haunted atmosphere full of echo. The punchy “A Song for
Departure” (both Moore and Wire were instructed to play their
instruments like in “Beat It”, leading to the song’s backbone groove),
the colossal and glacial “Empty Souls” and the warm nostalgic sunshine
of “Glasnost” are majestic stadium moments that still bear their hearts
openly; “Emily” and “Cardiff Afterlife” gently wrap their fingers around
the listener as they sink into their resigned yet beautiful atmosphere.
“Always/Never” is a dreamy funk trip that reveals a new dimension with
each listen.
I make it a point to never do song-by-song lists
in my reviews as
they’re a crawl to read through, but these songs deserve the mentions.
They all do. These are special songs packed with excellent lines,
brilliant melodies and which reveal worlds about their creators despite
coming off almost cold and aloof at first thanks to how their sound.
They are both bold and fearless yet vulnerable and intimate, with no
amount of production layers disguising how this is one of the few
moments in Manics’ discography where no one else mattered but the band
themselves. It feels vital - it was vital for the band to create it and
to get it ouf of their system, and
it’s become vital for me as a music listener. It’s a keystone album in
my personal history and I am utterly biased about its strengths - and
yet, even when attempting to listen to it more objectively it feels like
the band truly tapped onto something special when they shed their
familiar skins that one time.
1) Dept. of Disappearance; 2) Matterhorn; 2) Young Saints;
4) Hangtown; 5) Get Up and Go; 6) Last Problem of the Alps; 7) Willow
Wand Willow Wand; 8) Somewhere There’s Someone; 9) Chopin Drives Truck
to the Dump; 10) Your Final Setting Sun; 11) Gimme Click Gimme Grid
More pleasantly familiar if completely predictable Lytle territory, with a few obvious standouts.
Jason Lytle’s first post-Grandaddy solo album - Yours Truly, the Commuter
- came with a comforting sense of familiarity. It may not have been
thoroughly excellent but it was very undeniably Lytle, proving that even
if Grandaddy were gone he was still releasing music with the same magic
intact, which is obviously a great thing. Dept. of Disappearance,
his second solo release, also comes with a sense of familiarity. This
time there’s no alarms, no surprises - just a feeling we’ve actually
heard this all before. Just one album ago, actually.
Dept. of Disappearance could just as well be titled Yours Truly, the Commuter 2.
The differences between the two albums are largely superficial: Lytle
still plays all the instruments but he’s produced them to sound more
like a live band this time rather than the decidedly homespun,
one-man-show feel of his solo debut. The overall musical gist, however,
has remained the same. Lytle plays his wistful indie rock as he longs
for something vaguely nostalgic and scatters melancholy melodies all
over his pretty little ditties. It’s Grandaddy with the edges off, with
any fuzzier guitars and rougher moments replaced by more synth strings
and piano-lead navel-gazing. Dept. of Disappearance even has a simple borderline-novelty sing-along moment in form of “Get Up and Go”, just like Commuter had “It’s the Weekend”. Dept of Disappearance comes across a lot like a neat copy/paste job that’s been brushed up a little.
The
good thing about finding your angle and sticking with it is that if
you’re good, you’re always going to produce pleasing results and that’s
what Lytle has done here too. Dept. of Disappearance is in every
way an enjoyable, competent album that’s going to please anyone who’s
ever enjoyed Lytle’s works before and which is a good album to dig out a
few times a year and lose yourself a little into. But it’s also the
first time Lytle hasn’t had anything new to say that would make it stand
out from the rest of his releases, and while enjoyable the songs
generally aren’t doing anything special either. Few are stronger than
others, like the sunset ballad “Matterhorn” and the anxious, hurried
“Your Final Setting Sun”, but most of the album’s contents were already
found on the last album and it was much more exciting and interesting
the first time around. The title track that opens the album is by and
far its best offering, starting out with a strong hook and self-assured
tone that’s miles away from the general wistfulness of the album, and
getting even better once it switches to its extended instrumental outro
that’s restrainedly epic.
It’s only at the very end and the closer “Gimme Click Gimme Grid” where Dept. of Disappearance
snaps out of its own comfort zone: the skipping rhythm of its drum
machine, the dissonantly different verses and choruses and the extended
length of the song all shaking things around. It’s hardly anything new
or experimental but it’s a nice inspirational spark, sadly at the very
of the album though. While on one hand I’m glad there’s another album’s
worth of more Lytle material out there, mostly it feels like Lytle’s
cruising on a comfortably pleasant autopilot for a good length of the
album. That the Grandaddy reunion announcement happened shortly after
the album’s release speaks for itself. There’s a great EP hiding between
the covers here but for the most part Dept. of Disappearance is Lytle writing music while his heart has already been set on bringing together the old band.
1) Last Conversation in Waltz Time; 2) Wild Animals Slowly Approaching the Lovely Country Funeral; 3) Out Cold on Indian Ambien (Dreams of Pay Dirt); 4) Meeshell; 5) Good Chord Song for LP Two; 6) Bird Feeder Soap Opera Plot; SepDecember Song
Predictably lovely piano improvisations, fit for a freebie release for fans.
This isn’t an integral canon entry in the saga of Jason Lytle - as the
title implies this was Christmas gift to fans, released as a free
download and which consists of seven solo piano instrumentals.
Improvised instrumentals at that, if the blurb on the cover is to be
believed. This is Lytle in the peace of his home, brainstorming for
more music after his return to music earlier in the year, and we just happen to hear it out of a whim.
But for what it is, it’s a surprisingly strong and enduring listen.
Lytle is actually a very enjoyable pianist - maybe not on a technical
level and he shouldn’t quit his day job over it, but his gift of melody
and penchant for somber melancholy are a natural fit for the instrument,
especially with how his songwriting changed during his latter day career. These
are lovely little ditties, a little haphazardly wandering due to their
improvisational nature but beautiful to listen to. Calming, as well; if
Yours Truly the Commuter relished in its particular coziness,
that
aspect is taken even further here. And maybe it’s just the knowledge of
this being a winter holiday release, but the relevant associations are
rife with the music here: it’s about as perfect a quiet snowy day
soundtrack as you could want, perfect for quiet contemplation when the
world turns powdery white. Put “Last Conversation in Waltz Time” or
“Wild Animals Slowly Approaching the Lovely Country Funeral” on and life
instantly seems more peaceful. I mention those songs specifically
because they’re the homes for the
loveliest melodies of the album, though in the long run none of the
songs are too far away or particularly distinguishable from one another,
and not necessarily in a bad way. “Good Chord Song for LP Two” might be
of particular interest to anyone who really enjoyed “Somewhere There’s
Someone” from Dept. of Disappearance, now here in its original embryonic form as the title suggests. “Meeshell” also apparently interpolates The Beatles’ “Michelle” but it’s subtle enough that as someone who’s not too familiar with the source, the reference is lost on me.
Lytle
never intended this to be anything more than a quick surprise gift
for the fans, but I’ve found that this has secured a life beyond just
curio status or relegated to its designated holiday season (there’s
literally nothing Christmas-sy here after the title). 30 minutes of
Lytle’s gentle,
lovely piano is a delightful thing, moreso than one would’ve expected
and as
far as random freebie downloads go this is definitely from the better
end. The only thing that could have really improved it is a little bit
more
compositional focus instead of relying on improvisation, but then would
this
have sounded as relaxed as it does now in that case? Either way, it’s
really rather nice - it’s no
exaggeration when I say that this is probably the Lytle solo release I
find myself playing the most.
