7/19/12

6 a.m., my favorite time of morning. Turn on the songs I can't get out of my head, plug in machines for coffee and straight hair and air conditioning. Another day begins with little promise except the knowledge that it, too, will end.

Sometimes outstretched hands belong to the most surprising of arms. Sometimes not. If the adage is true that some things never change, why bother with denial? What haunts late at night is still there in the morning.

We know how this ends.

"Let it out, let me in, take a hold of my hand
There’s nothing like another soul that’s been cut up the same
And did you want to drive without a word in between?
I can understand, you need a minute to breathe
And to sew up the seams after all this defeat

And we waited for the sirens that never come
And we only write by the moon
Every word handwritten
And to ease the loss of youth
And the many, many years I've missed you
Pages plead forgiveness
Every word handwritten"

~Handwritten 

The Gaslight Anthem, Handwritten

7/16/12

Uhmmmmmm, this?

Or the best version of this I could find pre-release, anyway...pretty killer sound for live, guitar is incredibly clear....it's the much-anticipated "Handwritten," who cares?!


"Who else can say that about you, baby? 
Who else can say that about you now? 
Who else can take all your blood and your curses? 
Nobody I've seen you hanging around."
~Biloxi Parish
The Gaslight Anthem, Handwritten

This was a good day to hear this album. Good day for something new and yet familiar.

This album is striking me really well, definitely a summer album. Too soon to tell if it surpasses "American Slang" but it does effectively tear my heart out. Same themes, music and mortality and near-fatal romance...while critiqued as repetitive, I wouldn't expect or desire anything else than something this polished, melodic, impassioned. 

Starting with the already-classic "45" giving you just a taste of the hooks to come, in its entirety Gaslight has stretched its best qualities to the limit: it's visceral, sensory and sing-a-longtastic, there's guitar lines that cry and then sob, and vocally Brian Fallon has never sounded this good, or this much like a rock star. Lyrically, it all feels somehow sadder than the past albums, less hopeful, more desperate. 

Title track, in true TGA form, is also amazing.

"And to ease the loss of youth and the many, many years I missed you
Pages plead forgiveness, every word handwritten"
~Handwritten
The Gaslight Anthem, Handwritten

And, like past albums, "Handwritten" ends on a soft, sad acoustic note with "National Anthem," nostalgic and aching to recover..."I already live with too many ghosts."

Sidenote: Getting a little tired of every-single-fucking-reviewer comparing TGA to Springsteen. Own. Band. Decades. Later. And E Street has sax. Do we HEAR any sax on this? No. Did E Street do double-time? No. Get. The. Fuck. Over it.

7/15/12

Have I not written about mewithoutyou before? Tragic, I love them so much, their out-there poetic phrasing, eerily silky guitars and tension building drumrolls capturing insanity and paranoia and all the scary things most people are too afraid to be bold about.

One of the weirdest and coolest, to be sure.

The first time I heard them was at a live show, so I was nothing but sold. That being said, mewithoutyou is one of those bands that you have to get in and understand to really appreciate, a brand of thinking man's post-hardcore, maybe?

Their latest effort, a wrecked circus train concept album, progresses their catalog well. There's a little more melody and a little less shouting, but all together it's really quite as brilliant as "Catch for Us the Foxes," in it's own way.

Vivid and descriptive and as out-there-as ever, this may be mewithoutyou's most accessible effort. See: chord progressions that borderline on happy ("Cardiff Giant," "Fiji Mermaid") despite accompanying thoughts on mortality that we've come to know and except. "Fox's Dream of the Log Flume" feels the most like a toss to their earlier work, with never-ending verses into a guitar-centric breakdown, only Hayley Williams' harmonies are there for added flavor.

One thing that hasn't changed: Some of the best vocabulary you'll hear in post-hardcore. If the scene was a high school English class, mewithoutyou is the mousy kid who doesn't need to show up to pass and tries to dress like the beatniks.

Listening to "Ten Stories" for the first time on a cross-county drive, I found myself getting lost in its peaks and valleys, finding it had more to do with my head than my heart. While past efforts were borderline soul-crushing in their sadness and despair, "Ten Stories" has more to do with mystery, chance and the experience of the present moreso than lamenting the past.

"What from the air now calls to water on the land?
What from my seclusion does this charlatan demand?
What to do now with my best-laid eremitic plans?
I’ve been to the Arfaks where the Sicklebills fly,
seen Tangier’s acrobatics nine stories high
I was there at Appomattox back in ’65 when the General arrived
But I’ve never been in this room before..
All untied, by and by!
That same old dream’s trapped in my mind
All  united, by and by
I’m bound in ropes, and on the firing line
All united, by and by
Well, I wake up disappointed every time
I wake up disappointed every time"
~Nine Stories,
mewithoutyou, Ten Stories

Additionally, someone buy me a Telecaster stat. Time to plug something in.

7/11/12

If Jimmy Eat World can capture one feeling with unmatched purity, it's the pang of lingering affection. Also, they have a tendency to fill an album closer with all the best things: heart, tension, poignant lead guitar, and the delicacy of the final fingers brushing away from the last and grasp. "Dizzy" measures up on both counts.

Sidenote: Audio is surprisingly awesome for what looks like a cell phone vid. Thank you, Internet.

"All talk and not a lot to think, we were living dreams

And shame never crept close to our naked feet
If there's something left to lose,
Then don't let me wear out my shoes
I'm still walking.

I tried, but it rang and rang, I called all night
On a payphone, remember those from another life?
If everything I meant to you,
You can lick and seal then fold in two
Then I've been so blind.

Respectfully, so honestly I'm calling out
Do you hear the conversation we talk about?
Back away to the safety of a quiet house
If there's half a chance in this moment
When your eyes meet mine, we show it off."
~Dizzy
Jimmy Eat World, Chase This Light

7/9/12

"If I told you a secret
You won't tell a soul
Will you hold it and keep it alive?
Cause it's burning a hole
And I can't get to sleep
And I can't live alone in this lie" 

Here we have underrated British pop-rock, at least in the stateside music circles I run between.

Hypnotic in waltz time and infused with bells, this song is standard Travis - never too happy, never too sad, embracing instrumentation.

I love the mystery in this song, there's something about it that shrouds the directness of the underlying message which is, really, about facing the fears of love.

File that one away under "things that never change."

"If the world isn't turning
Your heart won't return anyone, anything, anyhow...
So take me, don't leave me
Take me, don't leave me
Baby, love will come through 
It's just waiting for you"
~Love Will Come Through
Travis, 12 Memories