Gut Feeling: Sturgill Simpson - Metamodern Sounds in Country Music

Sturgill Simpson – Metamodern Sounds in Country Music

High Top Mountain, 2014

“What kind of music are you into?”
“Anything but country.”

This dismissive bit of dialogue is one we all know well. I’m assuming everyone has either asked that question and braced for that response or, in ones younger, more vulnerable years, said that statement out loud. I’m sure I did. Sturgill Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music is the record that you use in response to “anything but country.” You shove it into the dismisser’s hands and say, “Here, if you can’t even remotely appreciate the rambling beauty of this record I don’t even know you.” Because there’s just so much to like about Simpson’s sophomore LP. And really, who doesn’t like outlaw country? I bet everyone who ever said “anything but country” would cop to liking Johnny Cash, right? Simpson is more of a Waylon Jennings, but that’s no matter. He sounds displaced from his proper era. His songs are certainly modern and often weird as hell, but the sound is pure late-60s Nashville. At first it feels like pure throwback, but repeat listens reveal it’s pretty slippery. Hard to pin down or pigeonhole as a pure tribute to the outlaw country legends of forty years ago. What are you supposed to do with lines like “There’s a gateway in our mind that leads somewhere out there beyond this plane/ Where reptile aliens made of light cut you open and pull out all your pain” from the opening track “Turtles All the Way Down.” It’s pure psychedelia, and if you don’t believe me, listen to Simpson sing “Marijuana, LSD, Psilocybin, and DMT/ They all changed the way I see” in the next verse. Simpson might have the voice of a shitkicking rabble rouser (I mean that as the highest compliment, his voice is tremendous, absolutely fucking tremendous and if you don’t believe me, wait til he belts out the last chorus of his cover of When in Rome’s “The Promise” and tell me I’m wrong) but goddamn this son of a bitch is deep. Metamodern Sounds in Country Music is an intoxicating listen with deep roots and sharp claws (“But it ain’t all flowers/ Sometimes you gotta feel the thorns/ And when you play with the devil you know you gotta get the horns”) that dig right into your skin without mercy.

Here's Sturgill Simpson's Tiny Desk Concert, which is a terrific gateway drug.

Gut Feeling: Sun Kil Moon - Benji

Sun Kil Moon – Benji

Caldo Verde, 2014

When my daughter was born, I got a month off work. It was great, and more exhausting than work, and for thirty days I worked the night shift while my poor, bedraggled wife slept. From 10 PM to 5 AM I’d hold Rosie while she slept because, naturally, the only way we could get her to sleep for a decent amount of time was to put her on my chest. I liked it. I loaded up my phone with lovely, quiet music and downloaded a couple of great games on the iPad and I settled in for my shift. During this time I must have listened to Benji forty times. The quietly sung songs played on a delicately finger-picked guitar let the baby sleep and let my mind devour the music. I listened to it incessantly, and I’m just now getting around to writing about it because I’m still processing, still uncovering, and still don’t feel like I’m ready to move on from Benji.  

I’ve always been a fan of Mark Kozelek’s output, but a casual one. I heard Red House Painters’ Songs for a Blue Guitar in college and very much enjoyed its loveliness. Sun Kil Moon’s Ghosts of the Great Highway was in the background in my later college years and his album of Modest Mouse covers—Tiny Cities—got some play as well. I enjoyed his collaborations with Jimmy LaValle and Desertshore last year, and I think it was those albums that put Kozelek back on my radar and set me up to get totally lost in Benji, which, I should add, is probably the saddest album I’ve ever heard. It’s not depressing (although I’m sure that’s arguable), just deeply sad. But also breathtakingly gorgeous and occasionally laugh out loud funny. It’s a masterfully rendered self-portrait that is so emotionally honest it’s almost painful to experience.

The thing that sticks with me most is that Kozelek has had not one, but two relatives die via exploding aerosol cans in garbage fires. I can’t get over the weirdness of that, and I don’t think Kozelek can either, considering both his deceased cousin and uncle get songs in this album (“Carissa” and “Truck Driver,” respectively). “I Can’t Live Without My Mother’s Love” appears to be tender and sweet upfront until you realize it’s a meditation on not knowing how he’s going to cope when his mother inevitably passes away. “Pray for Newtown” plays like a response to a letter mentioned in the song where a fan asks him to pray for the victims in the tragedy that was Newtown and the song is an exercise in attempting to cope with the most horrific tragedy in modern American history. It just goes on like this, and it’s so incredibly comforting to hear someone bearing everything. All there, right out there for you to share and while I’ve never had a loved one die in a fire caused by an exploding aerosol can, I can relate to all of the underlying fears and anxieties.

 Mercifully, Kozelek closes the album with a bit of lightness. “Ben’s My Friend” is a chronicle of attending a Postal Service reunion show. It’s a mundane account of the day and I feel like it’s there to let you know that life goes on. Despite all of the heartbreak of the album’s previous ten songs, you still gotta get up every day, run errands, and try to enjoy your life. The lyrics crack me up every time. Stuff like “Bought a 350 dollar pair of lampshades/ And we at eat Perry’s and I ordered crab cakes” and the refrain of “Sports bar shit” that serves as the second chorus is like a sigh of relief. Sometimes I feel like the only person in my life that really appreciates darkness, so these sad records tend to be very personal experiences. It’s like the record became a part of me and now I carry it around with me. I like that. I think great albums do that to you. You transform a little. You’re a little something more than you were before you heard it. You see things a little differently, things are a little heavier or lighter or fuller. Benji is one of those albums that reminded me why I choose to love music, and I am eternally thankful for its existence.

"Carissa"

"Ben's My Friend"

Gut Feeling: Cymbals Eat Guitars - LOSE

Cymbals Eat Guitars – LOSE

Barsuk, 2014

A few years ago I gave up on trying to be anything but an indie rock kid. It was hard to quit pretending that I really listened to everything when really all I wanted to listen to was people banging out chords on guitars singing simple, heartfelt songs. After leaving KJHK, where I felt it was important to paint myself as someone who loved all types of music, I went into a deep hibernation of 1990s alternative rock. I listened to the Lemonheads and Superchunk incessantly in addition to combing through the darker recesses of Guided by Voices’ back catalog. It was so fundamentally necessary to unwind from almost four years of playing tastemaker. It’s embarrassing that I even think of it like that, but that’s how I approached my job at the station and when it was all over and the mask fell off, I accepted myself for what I was: Someone with boring taste. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate all different types of music, it’s just when I instinctively reach for something to put on in the car or in my headphones I go for the same sort of stuff. Some is punkier, some is poppier, some is folkier, but it’s all a variation of my beloved indie rock and roll.

When I put on the new Cymbals Eat Guitars record I was just looking for something pleasant to have on in the background. I remembered enjoying their first record—Why There Are Mountains—when it came through KJHK, but couldn’t remember anything but a line about Natural American Spirits from the one song (“Wind Phoenix”) I listened to on repeat. They released a follow-up in 2011 that I totally missed. The last I heard from them they were doing an episode of the AV Club’s Undercover series in which they covered Superchunk’s “Detroit Has a Skyline.” Which is ultimately what caused me to take a chance on LOSE, which ended up being one of the most surprising and enjoyable records I’ve heard all year.

All the indie rock elements are there, but the Staten Island quartet arranges them in such a way and bends generic conventions is a refreshing treat. The first three tracks go from emotionally charged slowburner to a reverb drenched 80s alt-rock throwback to a propulsive, harmonica heavy folk-tinged stomper. It’s an excellent place setting that keeps the listener off balance but also keeps them locked into curious route this band is taking. The lyrics come across deeply personal and deeply sad. Certain lines catch my ear and I know I’m going to be poring over this one for the rest of the year (“I learned to scream ‘Bone Machine’/ My windshield spit was glistening” and “Each frequency’s a memory of some show we attended/ Fuck you learner’s permit/ Drive down to Philly with me to see the Wrens in a rec room” are good examples. Actually, there are a couple of Wrens references on LOSE, and the lyrics sheet looks a whole hell of a lot like The Meadowlands. Which is a really good thing). The personal burden unloaded in Joseph D’Agostino’s songs helps to eschew the normal indie rock conventions and offer a document of drugs and friendship and grief. It’s the sort of deep, thoughtful record with a hearty shelf life that makes me salivate.

"Jackson" 

"Warning"


"Chambers"

Gut Feeling: The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers

The New Pornographers – Brill Bruisers

Matador, 2014

The New Pornographers are making records like there are other bands vying for the title of finest power pop band of the 21^st Century. As usual, no one even comes close to matching the explosive, soulful, and devastatingly hooky pop Carl Newman and company have been crafting since the turn of the century. Their last two records—2007’s Challengers and 2010’s Together—were understated, democratic affairs, that were enjoyable but seemingly shooting for loftier emotional payoff rather than pop majesty. Brill Bruisers is their most undeniable record since their 2005 masterpiece Twin Cinema and a mighty return to form.

Has it really been almost ten years since Twin Cinema? That record is still so fresh in my mind. Driving down I-35, blaring it the day it came out, understanding that it was going to be my favorite record of the year. Undeniable. The kind of music with a direct line to that kinetic link between my heart and mind. Nine years later I’m driving down the same highway, listening to Brill Bruisers, and feeling that same satisfaction. And I’m thinking Brill Bruisers is the better album. It just feels like a classic.

While a lot of what I love about Brill Bruisers is rooted in a gut-level appreciation for the booming guitars and lovely harmonies, but have been actively tricking my brain into appreciating all of the elements that went into making this immensely satisfying record. First, it’s a wonderful blend of something old and something new. The aforementioned full-bodied guitars that morph into a big wall of sound at will are like sonic comfort food, but it’s worth mentioning that Neko Case and Dan Bejar are coming off the best albums of their respective careers and there’s something about Brill Bruisers that feels like an All Star Game, but with actual stakes. Carl Newman (who is also coming off the best solo album of his career) plays ringleader, effortlessly corralling all of these elements like a master alchemist.

The Neko led “Champions of Red Wine” is buoyed by sparkling synthesizers and despite having throaty, driving guitars backing her up, it’s the album’s most intimate moment. The crunchy guitars that anchor two thirds of Dan Bejar’s tracks are perhaps the furthest thing form the euro disco vibe on his latest album as destroyer, Kaputt. “Born with a Sound” oscillates between heavy verses and effervescent choruses thanks to the sweetness of Kathryn Calder’s co-vocals. His other stand-out track is the album’s single “War on the East Coast” which is a delightful bit of fun with menacing guitars and the busy synthesizers that tie the whole album together.

There are so many treats on Brill Bruisers that it’s impossible to list them all. The ELO inspired vocoded vocals on “Backstairs.” The token late album change-of-pace track “Wide Eyes” features the album’s best interplay between Case and Newman and it’s just nonchalantly tucked away! Slow burning closer “You Tell Me Where” ends the album the way all New Pornographers albums end: with big, satisfying harmonies and perfect synthesis. It’s amazing this group is still together, considering how successful Neko Case and Dan Bejar have become in their own careers. Still, after 14+ years, maybe it’s inertia keeping these guys together. And in that case, thank god for inertia. I don’t expect this album to grow, not really. They don’t have to evolve. I look forward to their albums because I know I’m going to get the best, soul satisfying power pop the modern music world has to offer and yet here I am, delightfully surprised that the group has somehow gotten better. I’m going to appreciate it while it lasts, which will hopefully be a long long time.

"War on the East Coast"

Gut Feeling: The Hotelier - Home, Like Noplace is There

The Hotelier – Home, Like Noplace Is There

Tiny Engines, 2014

There isn’t enough space on my iPhone for too much music. Frankly, there are too many pictures of my baby, and even though I deleted the blurry ones, there are photos and videos I just can’t bring myself to get rid of even though they’ve been transferred to both my computer and iCloud. For six months, one album has avoided being cut from the 10 or 15 I keep on my phone. Usually, album’s cycle out as I absorb them and review them, but the Hotelier’s Home, Like Noplace Is There gets a stay of deletion. And really, it’s not even close. I haven’t written about this album even though I listen to it at least once a week. It’s one of my favorite albums of the year, and one reason for that is the fact that I haven’t been able to distill this album’s essence into words. It’s full of big, sweeping, grandiose, emotionally intense, heartbreaking, and deeply satisfying songs that resonate on a wave of emotional honesty that I require from any record I’m going to spend a significant amount of time with.

Home, Like Noplace Is There is absolutely relentless. If you’re not getting pummeled by Christian Holden’s devastating vocal performance, you are certainly being pummeled by the big, building guitars weaving some of the most satisfying and moody work the new emo revival has to offer. That, or the perfectly placed whoa-OH-ohs, the beautiful balance of incredible intensity and deathly quiet and the way both of which seem equally capable of shattering your heart. As lovely as this album often is, full of gorgeous melodies and passion, the songs are packed with ugly truths being stared straight in the face. Addiction, death, betrayal, all the heavy stuff heaped over some of the rawest, most compelling music I’ve heard all year. Maybe I’m biased (I did grow up on Brand New and this is hitting those exact same buttons and then some) with my penchant for artists who overshare and songs told in dog metaphors (“Housebroken”), but either way the chest-clearing, catharsis incarnate tone of Home, Like Noplace Is There is something to be heralded.

You can listen to (and acquire) the album in its entirety at Bandcamp, which I recommend as this is a real, proper capital-A Album to be experienced in its sequenced entirety.

"The Scope and All of This Rebuilding"

"Discomfort Revisited"

The Menzingers - Rented World

The Menzingers – Rented World

Epitaph, 2014

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2014

Price: $5

 

Has pop punk been secretly thriving all of these years, or are all the people who grew up on pop punk in the early 00s reviving the genre in their mid-to-late 20s? Either way, there’s something about this new wave of energetic records packed with hooks, sing-a-long harmonies, and big, booming power chords. Scranton, PA’s the Menzingers are as good as anyone when it comes to thoughtful whoa-Oh-oh pop punk. I’d never heard of this band until I saw they were touring with Lemuria (fellow purveyors of thoughtful, catchy music), and of course I stumbled across this album the next week and bought it sight unseen. Er, sound unheard? Either way, it’s something I never do, and something that sent a little thrill down my spine. Sure, it’s exciting to find new music on the internet, but actually taking a risk on a band has become wholly unnecessary in our society and while that’s mostly for the best, there’s something special about taking home a cool looking record, putting it on the turntable, and unlocking the mystery.

When the Menzingers are at their best they remind me of the first Killers album. I hope that doesn’t come across as an insult, because that record has some of the catchiest songs I’ve ever heard. Earworms that reside in my brain til this day. And tracks like “Where Your Heartache Exists” massage that part of my brain that lives on grandiose pop music. The Menzingers are smarter than the Killers, and they have more heart. My favorite surprise from Rented World is the excellent songwriting. The music is so good, the lyric sheet doesn’t need to be anything special, but it is anyway. The songs are wordy, but Tom May and Greg Barnett are more than capable of wrapping them around these potentially overpowering tracks.

I’m a grown ass man, but I’m enjoying this album the same way I would have when I was sixteen. The big change though is I am now better equipped to appreciate the ebb and flow. The tracks needn’t all be high-octane bangers to get my seal of approval, and the slower tracks peppered in to give the album texture (the lovely “Transient Love” and the heartwrenching acoustic closer “When You Died” help to make Rented World more than just another punk rock recordthe invasion) are some of my favorites. Better still, when the tracks switch tempo midstream, as on “In Remission,” which I can’t stop listening to. Equal parts anthemic and sensitive, the Menzingers do a great job of subverting expectations and manage to put their own stamp on a well-worn genre.

"In Remission"

"I Don't Wanna Be an Asshole Anymore"

Gut Feeling: Guitar - Come Summer Come Blues - The Abandoned House of Micha Lueckner & Susi Tunn in 14 Songs

Guitar – Come Summer Come Blues – The Abandoned House of Micha Lueckner & Susi Tunn in 14 Songs

Self-Released, 2014

In our modern age, where everyone can know everything about everything, it’s nice to stumble across a band with an ungoogleable name, give their album a listen because it has an interesting title, and just go along for the ride. The band’s website runs like a messy flash game, but I was able to glean some information. Notably that Guitar hails from Cologne, Germany and showcases the output of Michael Lueckner and Tokyo-based vocalist/co-songwriter Ayako Akashiba. The site explains Guitar’s intent at its inception in the early 00s was “to produce new unique guitar-based songs and sounds that normal guitar bands do not or can not produce” and then how this idea was abandoned in favor of using all sorts of instruments.

The result is a lovely and strange hodgepodge that very much reminds me of the records of the Books. Yet where the Books championed a sort of electronic music/audio collage blend, Come Summer Come Blues feels more like an audio scrapbook. The songs blend and fold together, but the influences are pretty wide. Shoegaze, trip hop, folk, minimal techno, ambient, and post-rock elements are spread pretty equally throughout the record recalling My Bloody Valentine, Sigur Ros, Portishead, and Kraftwerk (because of course). Not to mention a significant Japanese influence that is not entirely limited to Akashiba’s beautiful vocals. The most surprising moments are when actual structured songs take form out of the sprawling sonics (notably “Spiders are Lonely Demons Dwelling On Your Attic,” which sounds, of all things, like early Death Cab for Cutie). There’s also a transcendently beautiful acoustic guitar interlude titled “Love Won’t Fade” that blew me away. There’s nothing that special about it, but the way it serves as a palate cleanser in this sensory overload of an album is pretty great. After that, it cuts back into sparse, looped and reversed electronics and we remember where we are: An album that is also a hall of mirrors, reflecting back things we have heard before in a unique and inventive way.

You can listen to the album in its entirety over at Bandcamp:

Gut Feeling: Cheap Girls - Famous Graves

Cheap Girls – Famous Graves

Xtra Mile, 2014

Fuck. How is this this bands FOURTH album and I’ve never heard of them til now? So it goes. Better late than never. These Michiganders play the sort of 90s alt-rock inspired indie rock that fuels my days. Their sound can actually be deduced from the bands they’ve spent time touring with (The Hold Steady Against Me!, Bouncing Souls, Lemuria, and Andrew Jackson Jihad) with a handful of J. Mascis vocals thrown in and the amps pushed past their breaking point to the point where everything sounds like a messy stew of power chords, fuzzy bass, and crashing drums. Somehow these guys manage to sound glossy (read: Gin Blossoms) and gritty (read: Dinosaur Jr.) at the same time, which I love, which I cherish, which I adore. Famous Graves is one of those rare albums that builds into a back half that is stronger than the front. So much so that “7-8 Years” is touted as a “Bonus Track” and it’s my favorite track on the album. There are guitar heroics, no jumping through flaming hoops. This is just good old fashioned earnest dude rock. Famous Graves is remarkably consistent and a statue built to those who have been mourning the death of the big guitar in modern music.

RIYL: Ola Podrida, a less grizzled the Reigning Sound, Ultimate Fakebook, the bands listed within this review.

Stream the album in its entirety here.

"Man in Question"

Gut Feeling: The Hold Steady - Teeth Dreams

The Hold Steady – Teeth Dreams

Washington Square, 2014

 

“When we get older it gets harder to remember/ We are our only saviors,” Craig Finn intoned on the lead-off track of the Hold Steady’s last great record, 2008’s Stay Positive. That album was about growing up after three albums of killer parties, massive nights, and sketchy characters roaming the streets of the Twin Cities. Sadly, all of that wonderful debauchery has proved to be what made the Hold Steady so wonderful, and while it’s natural, even necessary, to mature, its not without its consequences.

In the case of the Hold Steady, they’ve made another good record. Just good. It has its moments, but it’s hardly even a shadow of Separation Sunday or Boys and Girls in America. There’s simply no energy. The band’s 2010 release, Heaven is Whenever, suffered from the same lack of spark, and I’m not surprised that the band now has more in common with Finn’s solo record (2012’s Clear Heart, Full Eyes) than the halcyon days of the Hold Steady’s mythos.

It almost hurts that the opening track “I Hope This Whole Thing Didn’t Frighten You” is vintage Hold Steady from the soaring riffs to the MPLS locale and the ominous presence of the Cityscape Skins. But it’s just there to get your hopes up. Second-single “Spinners” loses all the big majesty it shoots for in the muddy production that plagues the entire album (which is what you get when you hire Evanescence’s producer) and suffers from the pop-rock tendency to repeat the chorus 20 times. It’s boring. The album’s midpoint “Big Cig” is another vintage Hold Steady rocker that’s a sound for sore ears but is unfortunately followed by a couple of bland rockers that sap the goodness.

The thing is, I can’t blame the Hold Steady for not making ass-kicking records anymore because I don’t think they’re that band. The saddest thing is watching a songwriter with such a great eye for detail settle for broad generalities. It’s not that Teeth Dreams isn’t ambitious, because it’s super ambitious. If you had told me a Hold Steady album would end with two quiet tracks spanning almost 15 minutes I wouldn’t have believed you. The quiet tracks are where Finn’s songwriting really shines, but the excellent “Almost Everything” belongs on Finn’s next solo record and “The Ambassador” has great verses but the chorus is oh so blah. Nine-minute closer “Oaks” is a moody dirge that recalls Heaven is Whenever closer “A Slight Discomfort” minus the dynamic bigness that ended that record in a moment of triumph. “Oaks” plods along to the point where I can’t even pay attention. It eventually devolves into guitar solos as the album puts itself out of its mercy.

It sounds like I hate Teeth Dreams, but I don’t. My hopes are always too high for Hold Steady records because I love this band with every fiber of my being. I’m never going to throw in the towel on these guys, but the writing might be on the wall that it’s time for these guys to move on to bigger and better things. I was distraught when keyboardist Franz Nicolay quit the band following Stay Positive, but I get it now. He said the band only wanted to do one thing, and he wanted to do other things. It’s tragic wishing your favorite band would break up, but at this point in the game I’m more looking forward to the next Craig Finn solo record than the next Hold Steady LP.

"I Hope This Whole Thing Didn't Frighten You"

Gut Feeling: The Mountain Goats - Transcendental Youth

A year and a half after the release of the last Mountain Goats album—the magnificent All Eternals Deck—John Darnielle and company are back with a brand new one that is, as you’d expect, pretty great. Granted, I’m biased. I mean, I GUESS you could call it biased, but when it comes to the Mountain Goats my rabid fanship is less of a bias and more of a way of life. In terms of the Mountain Goats discography, there are no bad albums. There are average ones, like Get Lonely and maybe some of the earlier ones which are too disorganized to work as albums (and really, I don’t think they’re trying to work as albums anyway), but most of them range from great (The Life of the World to Come) to really great (Heretic Pride) to heartbreakingly good (We Shall All Be Healed) to the greatest thing I’ve ever heard in my life (All Hail West Texas) and the other greatest thing I’ve ever heard in my life (Tallahassee). I’m probably not the only person who’s thought about writing a screenplay/opera/ballet based on Tallahassee. That’s how we roll, I suppose.

So there’s a new Mountain Goats album, Transcendental Youth, and I have accepted it with open arms. Like every new MTN GTS release before it, this one took me a while to warm up to before I loved it. I don’t know why that is. As if my expectations are being let down a little bit and then song-by-song the whole thing comes together and it’s like YES! And it’s business as usual here. A song-by-song breaking down of my heart. Where Darnielle has been fixated upon survivor stories of late (notably “Never Quite Free” from All Eternals Deck and pretty much the entirety of The Sunset Tree, although there were some people who didn’t make it through on that one) and they are here in spades. Fuck-ups, rejects, failures. The kind of people who, in Darnielle’s words, “people who madly, stupidly, blessedly won’t stop surviving, no matter who gives up on them.” It’s a messy, life-affirming affair. But then again, what Mountain Goats album isn’t?

The opening line is “Do every stupid thing that makes you feel alive,” for fucks sake. I mean, seriously. And still, Darnielle & crew find ways to diversify. The horn section courtesy of Matthew E. White adds something fantastic and special and emotionally dissonant/triumphant to “Cry For Judas,” “In Memory of Satan” and the title track. It’s a fun new side of the Mountain Goats, but the most special collaboration is the one between Peter Hughes and Jon Wurster who grow tighter as a unit each time around. One of my favorite moments of any show ever was when some drunk ass girl talking way loud at the very front of the stage at a Mountain Goats show at the Jackpot in Lawrence years back almost got hit in the face by Peter Hughes bass and then immediately after that (I think, in my head) was the part on “See America Right” where he goes “Hey!” but in this version of the song he bellowed out “HEYYYYYYYY!” and it was great. Though the Mountain Goats are John Darnielle’s thing—in the sense that his lyrics are what draws people to this project moth/flame style—watching them become a full-fledged band over the last five or so years has been so much fun.

“The Diaz Brothers” is one of my favorite songs on the record, if only because I spent like fifteen minutes trying to figure out the namesake of the titular siblings (UFC fighters? I know how much JD loves fights, or is it just boxing? Singers? Is it a metal thing?) until I realized pretty much every write-up out there noted that the Diaz Brothers were basically the Rosencrantz & Guildenstern of Scarface. And THEN I fell in love with the song that much more. Darnielle always handles his characters with a novelist’s grace. Even when they’re preexisting fictional and non-fictional figures (Authors Sax Rohmer and HP Lovecraft, horror film villain Michael Myers, and movie stars Charles Bronson and Liza Minelli have had their own songs on the past handful of albums), drug addicts hold up in an apartment waiting for “the guy with the angel dust” as in “Lakeside View ApartmentsSuite,” historical figures (like Billy the Kid on the psychotically great All Eternals Deck b-side “CatherineAtrim’s Kid”), and misfits. It’s Darnielle’s tributes to musicians that always kill me. “Song for Dennis Brown” on The Sunset Tree and “September 15 1983” from Heretic Pride (about the death of Prince Far I) are sad and wonderful tributes to fallen reggae legends and here he pays tribute to tragic doo-wop singer Frankie Lymon on the standout “Harlem Roulette.” Lymon’s death by heroin overdose at the age of 25 is prime John Darnielle material. He covered his own addictions on We Shall All Be Healed and come to think of it, “Harlem Roulette,” “Song for DennisBrown,” and “September 15 1983” are all about singers who have died of overdoes. If it haunts his songs, it must haunt him. I guess. Maybe that’s where the joy comes from, because as depressing as any Mountain Goats song gets there’s always a glimmer of hope lurking on the horizon.

Though Darnielle has openly stated that though he is a recent father, this isn’t an album about being a father. It is however an album about staying alive, and with a wife and kid in tow, you can tell that Darnielle is just thankful to be around. “Every dream’s a good dream/ Even awful dreams are good dreams/ If you’re doing it right,” he sings on “Harlem Roulette.” There’s an appreciation of existence at work in his songs that elevates them to a level of transcendence. And sure I’m biased, I’ve been a huge fan of the Mountain Goats since the waning years of high school when I heard Atom and His Package’s cover of “Going to Georgia” and followed that tip down that long, tape-hiss laden rabbit hole and found a singer who made ever little fiber of my soul vibrate with a sort of positivity I’d been lacking. And I just don’t think Darnielle has ever let up. Every album is a treat and they’re kind of beyond being assigned trivial ratings. And naturally, Transcendental Youth rules.

Annnd here's JD performing "Harlem Roulette" for Pitchfork. Absolute perfection. The way he looks like a possessed preacher, yeah, I'mma go ahead and be part of THIS religion.


Here's a heartbreakingly lovely solo-piano version of "In Memory of Satan."


And the spectacular opening track that I barely mentioned, "Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1"


Darnielle performed a number of songs from this record with the classical vocal quartet Anonymous 4 in New York months and months back, and here's what "Counterfeit Florida Plates" looked like. (Hint: If your math looked like "JD + Vocal Quartet = Lovely, kind of awkward but a fun twist on the Mountain Goats"then your math was correct).

Gut Feeling: Frightened Rabbit - State Hospital EP

When I heard Frightened Rabbit had a new EP coming out, my first response was “Aw shucks, I wish they had a new ALBUM coming out.” And then I found out they did! And that this is a glorified single for “State Hospital,” which will be on the actual as-of-yet-untitled forthcoming LP. I like this move though. The whole giving the b-sides a good home thing is sweet. State Hospital finds a nice middle ground between proper EP and glorified single. Basically, that means that there isn’t a lot of connective tissue (other than the glorious sad bastard nature of Scott Hutchinson’s Scottish brogue) but all of the songs are good. A couple are great, a couple are just pretty good, and one is an interesting collaboration between Hutchinson and Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat. 

“State Hospital” does it’s job in whetting the appetite for the album proper. After two outstanding, insular break-up/post-breakup albums, “State Hospital” sounds like a nice, necessary leap forward for Frightened Rabbit. Hutchinson’s songwriting moves away from his own drama (which is really, truly, magnificent drama and if you haven’t heard Frightened Rabbit’s last two albums The Midnight Organ Fight and The Winter of Mixed Drinks you’re certainly missing out on two of the greatest collections of misery music from the last ten years) and writing about fictional characters’ drama and he’s doing it with the same attention for detail and pinpoint emotional resonance that makes the band’s songs so powerful. Hutchinson’s vocals have the same sense of purpose and conviction you get from a great Billy Bragg song. “State Hospital” is (I assume) about a fictional character and it’s sad as shit but the melody is gorgeous and the band works with all of this vast space and expands to the borders and retracts to the very center throughout the song’s four-and-a-half minutes. It is the first time Frightened Rabbit have ever sounded epic. Epic’s a word that gets thrown around a lot when it comes to music, but it’s the sort of song that takes you on a journey where all you see out your window is gruesome details and a faint light of hope at the end of the tunnel.

That said, the way Scott Hutchinson can write such intense songs NOT about his relationships kind of cements him as thoroughly legit 100% quality modern songwriter. I mean, he already was, but this is something I didn’t really expect. I didn’t expect to appreciate Frightened Rabbit more than I already do and here’s a new side I didn’t know I wanted or needed. And then you get “Boxing Night,” which was apparently left off the album because it was too much in the vein of The Midnight Organ Fight/The Winter of Mixed Drinks. Vintage Frightened Rabbit but again, the depth and range is vastly expanded this time around. There is so much going on to make this song as affecting as possible and none of it feels shallow or Major Label. It sounds like a band making the best of their opportunities and really getting the most out of the sound they’ve been crafting the last almost ten years (ten years! Fact: I still haven’t listened to Sing the Greys and I really don’t know why. I like to think it’s because I haven’t had time to do so because I’ve been obsessing over their most up-to-date release, what with The Winter of Mixed Drinks being my favorite album of 2010). “Boxing Night” has all those really poignant details that make the best Frightened Rabbit songs great. It’s one of the more terrific songs of the “waiting for the telephone to ring” genre. “I can’t call you mine anymore/ I can’t call you at all, full stop/ But you can call me anytime/ Call me whenever the fuck you want” so the climax of the songs goes. As I said, vintage FR.

“Home From War” and “Off” are pretty much by the books b-sides. That’s not meant to be derisive, but they are songs that experiment (lyrically and stylistically, respectively) with new styles/sounds/forms/etc and work, but work better on their own than they would on an album. “Wedding Gloves,” the collaboration with Aidan Moffat, is a weird one too that belongs right here, at the very end of this glorified single. You can tell Scott Hutchinson is pretty much thoroughly enamored with the fact that he got Aidan Moffat to work on a song with him, but I only say that because his lyrics are so honest and direct he had to have been influenced by Scotland’s most grim and straightforward band. OK, I cheated, I read something where Hutchinson said it was a dream to work with Moffat because he idolized the guy, but oh man, how fucking FUN right? Getting to collaborate on a tune with someone that inspired you to write songs in the first place? This is easily the most Scottish-as-Fuck song in Frightened Rabbit’s catalog. And it’s good. It’s weird, really kind of odd actually. Hutchinson and Moffat’s vocals almost feel like they’re fighting the whole time, like they’re totally ill matched but there’s just so much to like here. It’s the sort of promising EP you want out of a band you love preparing to drop a full length. A sort of “Shit, if these songs weren’t good enough for the record, this record must be made out of solid gold, the foie gras of indie rock records circa 2012/2013!”   

Gut Feeling: Japandroids - Celebration Rock

Japandroids – Celebration Rock

Polyvinyl, 2012

I sorta wrote off Vancouver duo Japandroids after seeing them play what I perceived at the time to be a boring live show. The Bottleneck was pretty empty, and I wasn’t even on the guest list because that had been happening a lot lately and I only got in because the Pitch’s managing editor happened to be outside the Bottleneck and did some sweet-talking. I think my mood had a lot to do with my opinion of the show, because I really loved their debut full length Post-Nothing. Their noisy, fuck-it-let’s-rock-the-fuck-out indie rock was classic. “The Boys Are Leaving Town” was on serious repeat in 2009 and though the music seemed simple on first listen, there was something about it that really resonated. I remember there was a big fan pointed toward singer/guitarist Brian King, which reminded me of this one time I saw this dude put on a solo metal show at the Replay Lounge and the dude played in front of a fan so it would blow his long midnight black metal hair all over the place. I don’t think King had long hair though, and I don’t know why I remember that, and I again I don’t know why that show left such a bad taste in my mouth but it did and it caused me to avoid pouncing on Celebration Rock when it came out in early June.

But now I’m listening to it and it’s got that same charm you get when you’re only playing with guitar, drums, vocals and a metric ton of reverb and distortion. Every track here is an anthem. Not some contrived anthem like all those songs on the new Gaslight Anthem album (man, talk about an anthem obsessed band if there ever was one) but like legitimate, fist-in-airs balls-to-wall anthems that most definitely appeal to a particular demographic of young, angsty men. I walk among that demographic, so fuck yes, I love Celebration Rock. And I love music that sounds like Celebration Rock. And I really want Japandroids to tour with Titus Andronicus and the Hold Steady because if you put those three bands on the same bill it might just be the best bill you’d ever see. An irreverent party full of fist pumps and sweaty bodies.

Like Post-Nothing, Celebration Rock boasts a sensational opening track with “The Nights of Wine and Roses.” King and drummer David Prowse make the most of their sparse set-up with huge guitars, shout-a-long vocal harmonies, and pummeling drums lurking in the background and picking up the slack on the breaks between riffs straight out of the best 80s punk rock songs. There’s a bats cover of The Gun Club’s “For the Love of Ivy” right there in the middle too, but it’s a nice weird change of pace that works as a sort palate cleanser. One that sets you up for “Adrenaline Nightshift” which hits like the best sort of punch in the face, and really does a great job of holding this brisk album up by preventing a mid-album slump. This thing never stops. At just 8 songs the thing is kinda fucking perfect. That’s just the right amount of songs to really encourage replayability. Too many, the songs might start to blend together, too few and it’s a glorified EP. Here it feels like an album unified by noisy ass guitars and songs about drinking and being alive. Anyone can build an angle out of anthems, but for a real fist-pumper to work you’ve gotta have heart, and the amount of heart these guys have is what makes Japandroids so special. Well, that and their gift for sustaining forty straight minutes of alt-rock that never quits and packs an emotional punch down in the majesty of power chords.

Here's the awesome closing track "Continuous Lightning." It's a goddamn stunner.

Best of 2011: Rooftop Vigilantes - Real Pony Glue

Since I first heard and fell in love with Rooftop Vigilantes second album, Real Pony Glue, like two years ago, I couldn't fit it into the list I'm making of my favorite albums of 2011. But it certainly belongs there, since it got left out of last year's and the year's before and since there's a funny story where I called dibs to review it for the Pitch way back when (and when a new editor had just started) and it took so long for this album to actually come out that a NEW new editor was in place and that didn't end up happening. But this is the sort of album not meant for this sort of "Best of 2011" list which is just a general catalog of music of the year that blah blah blah. This is the salvation of local music. To me, at least, and that's probably stilted maybe but not to me I guess. I don't actually own the album (save for the one-track MP3 mentioned in the review here) and have been listening to it track by track on the band's bandcamp page wishing I wasn't poor and wishing they didn't release it on goddamn cassette tape and hoping that once haters realize how good they are, this gets a vinyl release someday.

Rooftop Vigilantes – Real Pony Glue

Oh the woes of the local music scene. I first heard (and subsequently fell in love with) Rooftop Vigilantes troubled sophomore LP roughly two years ago (only judging from the “REALLY ALMOST PONY GLUE MIX” MP3 in my iTunes which is just one 40 minute track dated 1/15/10). The record was recorded by indie rock legend (and Jawbox frontman, indie rock legend first though) J. Robbins and never saw the light of day until the band released it on their own (and on goddamn cassette tape, which I know it’s organic and tangible and all but it gahhhhhh) this year. It’s a tragic thing, because I think Rooftop Vigilantes is the best band from Lawrence, and the best band that’s come out of Lawrence in a long time. I could talk your ear off about the fucking local music scene, but it’s just too long a conversation and one that makes me look like a horrible asshole. So I’ll leave it at “I love Rooftop Vigilantes.” Or I’ll amend that, “I love Rooftop Vigilantes and it’s not just because I know these people and I played in a band for a minute with the drummer and I think they’re generally very on it folks, I legitimately think this is a great record and even if they were all assholes I would STILL think this was a great record but fortunately they are not so that’s cool.” So where was I? Oh yeah, the tragedy of Real Pony Glue having to toil away in obscurity where it will have to become some sort of local legend like an artist who’s work isn’t appreciated til after he’s long dead and can’t reap any of the awards (like free coffee and favors, you know, the usual). This seemed to be true when I thought the band had broken up and I applied Guided by Voices references to them (See: “Bright Paper Werewolves” – “They want to get out of here/ But they can’t find the exit/ They cling to the cinema/ And they can’t find security/ Then they finally got recognized/ So they left in obscurity and misery.”) which was probably welcome but still pretty sad. But they’re NOT really broken up which is great, but they’re also not playing a show every couple of weeks, which is not great because that was the greatest when that was happening and a winter or so ago I had the most embarrassing moment of my life when I very drunkenly attempted to do vocals on their THIRD run through of Big Star’s “September Gurls” on the day of Alex Chilton’s death and proceeded to trudge the three blocks home in an intense snow storm where I stumbled on the sidewalk and ripped a hole in my jeans and thought about how people by jeans with holes torn in them and in my case I was just fucking annoyed cuz I’d just bought them a couple weeks ago and would have to go by a brand new pair but it was worth it even though oh god the horrific embarrassment still haunts me to this day. Rooftop Vigilantes taught me that it’s really wonderful having an open dialogue with a band you honestly love. You get to see all the minutiae, warts and all, and how that not only builds your appreciation for the band but for how music is made in general (read: like sausage, ugly but supremely tasty). The point is, I wish Rooftop Vigilantes was the house band at the Replay Lounge if only because this album’s title is an anagram of said bar. And it’s a perfect title because paying homage to that bar is pretty much paying homage to that part of Lawrence that this album stemmed from. I know it, people I know know it, and people who don’t know it can still sort of experience it by listening to this. It’s a fucking college town in the middle of nowhere (well, not really but I say Kansas, you say “The Middle of Nowhere”) and we’re just like you in INSERT CITY HERE. I love this record because today it seems like to be a band you have to be from Brooklyn and really, you can be from anywhere (read: Minneapolis in the 80s, a time period Roofie Vig no doubt adore with their ever present show-closing cover of the Replacements “Can’t Hardly Wait”) and I think we’ve sort of lost that. For the longest time, all the decent bands seemed like they were trying to get better so they could move to Brooklyn and Rooftop Vigilantes seemed like they were OK being in Lawrence and just did what they did because that’s what they did and there was no bullshit. There STILL isn’t any bullshit, and this record is a testament to that. And this reads like a love letter to Rooftop Vigilantes, which it is. I’m excited they’re making music again, and I’m sorry this had to have an obligatory spot on the list when it should have been higher but lists don’t matter and fuck everyone should listen to this album because:

Top 5 Reasons why Real Pony Glue is tragic because no one will give it the time of day:

5.) The Back Half of this album is just insane – Really, the back half of an album is usually reserved for filler. At least the back middle part, and then the last two are usually pretty OK, but all of these songs are real damn good. The front half is pretty rad too, but that’s expected, but burying “Seth No Jump,” which was the song fucking SPIN MAGAZINE wrote about, in the middle of the fucking album is bold, ballsy, and not even intending to be because that’s just where it fit and the craftsmen/craftswomen in this band know better than to put the single at track 3.

4.) The lead off track is dedicated to the hold policy of Lawrence’s finest record store – THIS IS LOCAL MUSIC. This is what I think of when I think of Lawrence. This band, this album, this song. There’s just SOMETHING I can’t even explain that I always wanted a local band to have and this band has it and I get really excited and every time they play a show I wanna rush out and go to it (although they played at fucking Love Garden like a couple weeks ago and I fucking forgot about it and I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO WORK THE NEXT DAY but I’m not too hard on myself because I thought this band was broken up for like, a year SO THERE). I can’t tell if my judgment is skewed. I mean, I KNOW it is, but I just don’t know how skewed it is because everyone loves the bands from their hometown. Although I usually tend to treat local bands with the same criticism I’d treat any band (which is only fair, you should be able to handle criticism and I remember some instances on music staff where a local record would be denied entrance to the coveted KJHK rotation and words would be had with the music director at the time where he would just say “OK we’ll give it another shot because it’s local” and it would be voted down again because goddamnit, you can’t have affirmative action for local music. You can grade it at a curve, sure OK but if it’s shitty it’s shitty and you can’t deny it just because they’re from your town they deserve to know and to learn from that because no one is ever gonna get better if you tell them that their shit music is sunshine and roses GODDAMNIT ok there was that long conversation about local music but moving on…) and if this band was from Boisie, Idaho or Augusta, Maine, I think I’d think they were awesome and I’d praise their clear love of the Replacements and GBV while not totally ripping them off and sounding like a real goddamn band.

3.) “Cartoon Crush” – This is the song that should open every set. This is the song you play to make all the people content to talk in the back and sip their PBR go “Whoa, this is actually pretty good.” And it has one of the best transcendent moments on the album at 1:10 when (I’ll probably use this again) when the whole motherfucker tips over and rushes off to the end of its short existence. Did I mention I love the fact that their songs are short, GBV style, which is kind of like getting to eat at Golden Corral everyday without getting fat (which is, basically, the greatest dream any man can have).

2.) “Fists of Gary” – Rooftop Vigilantes’ catchiest songs usually come from Oscar while Zach’s songs are the glue that kind of holds their albums together. But “Fists of Gary” is just so fucking good it makes me want to fucking scream. It’s written in vein that every Guided By Voices fan understands, and the transcendent quality to this song is ultimately what makes me so, so sad that labels didn’t flip their shit and sign this band immediately. This is the song that makes me want to have a trust fund just so I can start a record label and sign this band. LISTEN TO THAT GIRL GROUP DRUM DROP IN THE BREAK! GODDAMNIT!

1.) That part at the end of “Desperately Seeking High School On Ramp” (see: 1:20) – Zach and Oscar’s interplay as songwriters is the rocketfuel of this band (not to slight Seth (who is my favorite drummer in this town, and not just because I’ve played with him, but I jumped at the opportunity to play with him because he’s my favorite drummer in this town) nor Hannah (who’s farfisa skills add that extra something that separates RV from everyone else) and it’s so fun to have a band with dual songwriters who are probably constantly challenging each other to get better. But this song is Oscar’s best on the record because of that moment at 1:20 where it just all tips over and spills out. Fucking god. This is the part I think about when I think about this album when I think about this album.

Naturally, this review is heavily biased because this is a hometown band and touting this record would be like me praying for the Kansas City Chiefs to win the Superbowl. It's hometown pride, but it's more than that because my whole identity is tied to where I'm from despite trying to pretend that's not true. But then there's the aforementioned hate of local music and how Rooftop Vigilantes make me want to go to all of their shows because they're so goddamn good beyond anything I ever expected. They're a goddamn Kansas City Chiefs Superbowl, Royals World Series, and Jayhawks National Championship all rolled up into one little bundle that I can carry over my shoulder like a hobo wherever I go. Hell, they're better than that because they actually EXIST (with the exception of 2008, which I think RV understand based on Carrot Atlas' "Charley want Mario Chalmers"). More bands need to be this awesome, no matter where the fuck they're from.

Gut Feeling: Julian Casablancas - Phrazes for the Young

Gut Feeling is a new kind of post I'll be doing as an outlet for all the "holy shitting" that tends to happen once an album leaks. This was designed to make up for my decision to pretty much quit buying records unless absolutely necessary. This first one is unnecessarily long, the rest will be more concise, promise.

Julian Casablancas – Phrazes for the Young
RCA, 2009

I never gave a shit about the Strokes when they were huge. Is This It? Dropped a few months after I'd become steeped in punk rock and I saw nothing to this but hype. I saw a bunch of spoiled New Yorker with heiress-esque names that got to make a rock and roll record because their daddies had given them trust funds large enough to allow for them to not have jobs and be a full time band in their early twenties. The problem is, even though they represented that sort of pretentious cool that I hated, their music was really, really fucking good. I won't say it changed the face of rock and roll like everyone said it would, but it was fun, and when one of their singles would happen upon MTV at 4AM or would come on the radio I wouldn't change the station. Though I never listened to a single Strokes record all the way through until last night, there are four amazing singles that I recall quite fondly and still sound totally fresh today.

I don't know why I shunned the Strokes. Perhaps it was the anti-DIY aspects they flaunted. A bunch of guys in faux-faded leather jackets with cool haircuts (ok, I'll admit, I was just jealous. Seriously, those guys had the five best haircuts in rock and roll of the 00s) and rich daddies were from a different world than Minor Threat and Black Flag and the Descendents. Like movie stars who are only famous because their parents were famous, I questioned their credibility. Are they legitimately good or are they only good because they were privileged and achieved fame because they could afford it? And it took me a long time to figure out that that does not matter at all. Good is good. Which brings me to the new Julian Casablancas record, which caught me off guard and has become one of my favorite records of the year.

While I'm not keen to listen to a spoiled rock star bitch about his problems or to claim that his record combines classical composition with pop songwriting, the record itself is a deftly crafted message of alienation. There's a “lonely at the top” vibe to it, but mostly Casablancas, for the first time, seems like a normal person. In addition to that, he proved that he knows how to write a fucking great song or two. While I've never had much respect for lead singers, I only recently learned that Casablancas was the chief songwriter of the Strokes, which I construe as “the guy who put the songs together and told the other guys to do this and that.” I might be wrong, but he has more in common with Bob Pollard than I ever imagined. Although, there was that one video where the Strokes are playing Family Feud with Guided by Voices, that only became totally fucking amazing in the past couple of years.

The reviews for this record seem to be pretty mixed, but are mostly middling. The words “indulgent” and “ambitious” show up a lot, but mostly people just complain about little things because Julian Casablancas didn't save rock and roll like he was supposed to. There's lots of complaining about his voice sounding too smooth, and I wonder if they expected him to hang onto his gritty delivery forever. He's older now, in his thirties and understands that rock and roll is pretty much a young man's game. Phrazes for the Young is a step back and a redeployment of resources.

Opener, “Out of the Blue,” is exactly what a lead track on a debut solo record should be. It's different from his previous work, it's gripping, and it's catchy as all hell. It also sets up the album thematically, which waffles between ideas of isolation and love and sometimes touches at both on the same time. The first three songs are pretty much perfect. Structurally they work like my favorite pop songs. That is, they hit with a great verse and get to the chorus without an unnecessary run through of the verse. They're so tightly packed there's really no room for chaff. “Left and Right in the Dark” is a perfect track two. It takes it down a notch, and develops a slick little groove with the bass line and echoed guitar to get me up to the excellent chorus. “11th Dimension,” the album's first single, took a while to grow on me but I can see why he picked it to represent everyone's first glance at this record. It kind of sums it up. The synths are in overdrive, almost dancey and totally fucking new wave and that chorus, holy shit.

The first three songs could be their own little mini-EP, as they essentially represent the album as a whole. Well, at least thematically. “Out of the Blue” is for the jaded from the jaded, and maybe that's why it's my favorite song on the record. Because since graduating I've watched my hopefulness turn to sadness, my sadness to bitterness, my bitterness to anger, and my anger to vengeance which manifested itself in silent curses against the KU football team (it's working!) when I couldn't pick up my diploma due to some unpaid parking tickets I got and still haven't been able to afford to pay. From Julian's point of view it seems like a big old fuck you to everyone. EVERYONE. “Yes I know I'm going to hell in a leather jacket/ At least I'll be in another world while you're pissing on my casket.” A story of hopefulness to madness and yet it also happens to be a love song once the chorus hits, effectively asking someone why they stick around despite your great flaws, which seems like something I do on a daily basis.

“Left and Right in the Dark” could be about environmentalism given its references to urban decay and people turning the world back and slowing everything down, but it's probably about the same stuff “Tourist” is about. That is, not feeling at home anywhere because your home isn't there anymore. Times have changed, everything has changed and you just move on and wander about. “11th Dimension” is the letting go. Not so much the giving in, but an understanding that in the long run, pettiness and little things do not ever really matter unless you make them matter. “Forgive them even if they are not sorry,” he sings. It's probably the best line on the record, and the best thing anyone could glean from this.

Of the 8 songs on the record, only 2 really miss the mark. The faux-country “Ludlow St,” a dedication to the once former coolest street in NYC, meanders never quite goes anywhere and fails to realize that he's probably part of the reason that the history of this street has been erased. It's hard to take this guy seriously when he talks about “yuppies invading,” you know? The track it precedes, “River of Brakelights,” just kind of recycles on itself for five minutes, making for one of the more tragic middle-sections that often plague potentially great records. “River of Brakelights,” though, is almost always skipped.

He makes up for it with the next pair of tracks, though, which almost make up for the two songs before it. “Glass” is the best example of Casablanca's theorized classical meets pop concept. If there's one thing I've never faulted Casablancas for is his gift for vocal lines. His ability to warp his voice around words and melodies is pretty uncanny, and here it really shines. The verse are a little serpentine (in a good way) but once he hits that chorus and really fucking croons, I melt a little bit. Like a 16 year old girl with a teen idol crush. It's Casablancas meets maturity. The classical part makes sense with the guitar solo in the middle. I don't know anything about classical music, or how I would describe it, so I'll just be as broad as possible and say it sounds like Mozart played on an effects heavy electric guitar designed to sound almost like a synthesizer. Most importantly, the song is affecting. While the Strokes always just seemed to be about fun, and while that was their best attribute and what made them such a great band (I see now in retrospect).

The closer, “Tourist,” has been in heavy rotation for the past few days. At first I was bothered. “Oh, Mr. New York feels like a tourist now! How the tables have turned!” I scoffed. But after more and more listens through the record Julian Casablancas became more than a leather jacket, a cool haircut, and heroin chic. I separated him from the comment someone brought back from CMJ in 2005, bragging that he'd done coke with the Strokes. I separated Julian Casablancas from fashion, and I think that's what he did for himself on this record, even though he sounded like a dick in the interview I watched on youtube. But he feels like he doesn't belong anywhere in this world and I believe him. It sounds like his dealing with the Strokes seemingly forthcoming demise. Five friends got together and started a band and now, from what I've read, they don't even really talk and their band has basically become work. They all have their own solo projects going on and from Casablancas' perspective, he's spent so long doing this one thing he has nowhere to go and there you go. It's thematic!

I've been listening to this record for the better part of a couple of weeks now. It's to the point where Jenny groans whenever I drive us anywhere or when I listen to it while cooking dinner. There's something comforting about it, some sort of connection that seems rare with a lot of music now. I like a lot of the music that's been coming out, a lot of groundbreaking shit, whatever, but finding something that I click with or identify with or that makes me feel something has been rough. I saw Dirty Projectors tonight and felt absolutely nothing. Sure, I was watching some incredibly capable people playing some incredibly unique music but at the end of the day I'm not going to listen to Dirty Projectors to make me feel better. It's just been what I've wanted to hear every time I don't know what to listen to. Sure it's got its flaws, but it still feels like a statement. Yes, it is overeager and Casablancas sounds like he's trying to cram every idea he has into 8 songs but there's something wonderful about that too. That unbridled excitement. That doing everything you want your way and having control when control is so hard to have these days. Effectively, the message of the record is the making of the record: Sometimes you absolutely need to do what you want and do it your way. Fuck what anybody else thinks.