Joan of Arc – “Meaningful Work” 7”
Polyvinyl, 2010
Acquired: Crossroads Music, Used, 2013
Price: $2
Some days I feel like Joan of Arc’s sounding like white
noise to my ears is to be blamed on my never having listened to Cap’n Jazz. At
one point in the dorms I had Analphabetapolothology
on my hard drive but it has since vanished and I’ve been to lazy to reacquire
the album. Sometimes I feel like that might make Joan of Arc click. It might
also be that it’s too weird for my tastes. I love the 90s emo guitars that
still lurk on this late Joan of Arc 7” but their noted avant gardiness brings
on the washout. I zone out. Maybe Tim Kinsella just releases so many albums
that his discography becomes too daunting to keep up with. That said, after
listening to this 7” a few times I’m kind of into it. While I’m more partial to
Tim’s brother (and Cap’n Jazz and occasional Joan of Arc bandmate) Mike’s bands
American Football (for the smooth, late night true blue emo that both
Kinsella’s are responsible for propagating in the face of a genre overrun by
artists who think emo is all about screaming infidelities and so on etcetera)
and Owen (for the broken, quavering prettiness of Mike Kinsella’s sadness),
that’s mostly because those two bands are a lot easier to swallow than Joan of
Arc. Both “Meaningful Work” and “The Thing of Things” are packed with odd time
signatures, angular guitars, and weird lyrics that make the tracks something to
stand back and stare at hand-on-chin rather than internalizing them on an
emotional level.
"Meaningful Work"
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