2/9/14

"Tell me the lie/you're taking your time/over and over." 



Damien Jurado is one of the most under-appreciated singer-songwriters out there. If you haven't heard of him yet, you must give a listen. His work is so moving and beautiful - and consistent. His discography is massive. His style is elegant, his voice is beautiful, his words are heartbreaking.

I've enjoyed taking in his new release,"Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son," but my favorite album by far is 2008's "Caught in the Trees," which is cry-worthy good. Each song has incredible amounts of detail, from violins to back-up vocals, along with piano chords, auxiliary, a tasteful blend of guitar sounds and full-bodied rhythms weaving in between softer tracks for just the right spine. Lyrically, he is precise, succinct and often biting.  Nothing overdone here, just the message, highlighted by light harmonies and a complex score. This song, "Go First," is composed of what basically amounts to six lines - that's it, that's all, two short parallel verses and a one-line chorus delivered with a pedal-punch to the gut. Yet it stretches to four and a half minutes with a well-placed, patient guitar solo, and later, a melodic outro. As one of the more mid-tempo tracks on the album, it has great feel, hypnotically so, and as the first song I heard from Jurado I think it'll always be one of my favorites. So I play it, over and over again.

"Are you all right?
You're making me nervous with how much you leave me here.
Is it a sign?
I don't feel like ever getting well

Tell me the lie, you're taking your time over and over
Tell me the lie, you're taking your time over and over

My closest friends live on the side of where you now divide.
Is it a sign?
I don't feel like ever getting well

Tell me the lie, you're taking your time over and over
Tell me the lie, you're taking your time over and over

You can go first.
You're making me nervous with how much you leave me here.
Is it a sign?
I don't feel we're ever getting well

Tell me the lie, you're taking your time over and over
Tell me the lie, you're taking your time over and over
Tell me the lie, you're taking your time over and over
Tell me the lie, you're taking your time over and over."
~Go First
Damien Jurado, Caught in the Trees

2/8/14

The balance between vulnerability and aggression is a difficult one to strike, as real a combination as it can be. Pouring your heart out without being weak about it is, at times, counterintuitive, in life and in songwriting. Manchester Orchestra have always mastered this, though, and their upcoming album this year is easily one of my most anticipated. But "Mean Everything to Nothing" has always been my favorite in their catalog. I don't overplay it, not like I used to anyway, so it feels like a little secret, rediscovering something satisfying and suitable every time I listen.

I love how heavy it feels without losing fine threads of melody, feeling syncopated and demanding while making full use of tension. Sweeping full band crescendos, moments of quiet contrast, and dark, dark chords paint a backdrop for some of the harshest, biting poetry Andy Hull ever dreamed up....I love his scenes and assertions and questions, how physical and visceral they are. Mostly what I love about this album, especially the latter half, is how it sits so steady on the borderline of insanity, capturing and embracing and exploring that feeling of completely losing it, offering a semblance of surety and a center among the chaos.

"Definitely not the things that I'm seeing

Did I think I see so instantly?
I found a note in my grandfather's coat
When I read it out loud I got cold
It said I'm not complaining
Yeah I was just saying,
'I'm a man, I'm a lost one you see'
Come down with me to a place,

we'll get clean and we'll meet with them eventually
You mean everything
I don't know much
But a crutch is a crutch
If it's holding you from moving on
I don't know what to do
Not anymore, not anymore
I don't know what to do
Not anymore, not anymore
And you, well you mean everything
You mean everything to nothing
You mean everything to nobody,
You mean everything to nothing
You mean everything, to nobody but me."
~Everything to Nothing
Manchester Orchestra, Mean Everything to Nothing

1/30/14

The opening chords of this first song, "The Scope of All This Rebuilding," are causing multiple listens, I've replayed it over, and over, and over. The Hotelier offers something fresh tonight, while well-enough suited in modern punk sensibilities to suit a mood. The vocals are utterly broken, and I love it, I love how they come apart at the seams. I love the shattered feel. The intro melody that passes for a hook is morphed into different lyrics midway through, while off-kilter chords, speed lurches and breaks in the beat add some edge before sitting back into sustained tension. As far as continuity, I think it does the trick while the ending breaks it all of and brings it home -- otherwise, lyrically, it feels more post-hardcore than pop punk, no beginning middle or end just words words words and thoughts thoughts thoughts and break break break off and I quite like that style sometime.

I love how the song is less than two and a half minutes, finished with the same angst as it starts, and I've either let it flow into the syncopated intro of "Your Deep Rest," or click to replay. This song seems undeniably a single, or else an attention-grabber to stream around the Internet, though the rest of their BandCamp sampler is none too shabby either. Looking forward to picking up their full-length next month, playing it loud in my car,and getting to shows of all kinds once it's warm enough outside to feel like venturing beyond my door. This winter, for all its plus sides and unexpected activity, has called for hibernation.

"You cut our ropes,
left the umbilical,
and now I carry around
this weight of broken hope.
I can’t retrace,
and I lost my hold
and blame myself because that is all
I’ve ever known.
Your face shows doubt
when your head feels the wake of the sorrow.
Swore to me that you could live without
then the beg turns to take turns to borrow.
Help me down.
I just want this out.
When you bend, when you break, when you follow
you cut me out.
Then you cut our ropes,
left the umbilical,
and now i’m lost and I can’t take this path back home.
Send a birthday card.
Leave a one-way note.
I lied. I’m sorry. This isn’t easy. I don’t know.
And you’d ask me to “open your walls to this.”
But I’m scared, fingers broken,
and ill-prepared to let this drag out.
When you forgot the words to our song.
When you can’t remember names its been too long.
When you stopped asking what was wrong
all the pressure built up it was too strong.
I can't make this better.
It fell out of my hands because
I just wasn't built to hold on.
and I can’t remember names its been too long.
and I can’t find your face in the crowd.
I made a promise said my eyes would stay shut
through something called the scope of all of this rebuilding.
I broke when I entered. Displaced from the center,
I can’t find my way around this.
My wounds healed while my fingers fixed."
~The Scope of All This Rebuilding

The Hotelier, Home, There's No Place Like It

1/26/14

By and large most pop songs are about love and relationships. Failed, succeeding, new, old, cherished, regretted. The second most drafted topic, I would argue, is about inner turmoil, ruminations on depression and insecurity. The National is so skilled at marrying those topics, touching on the intertwined knot between desire and self-doubt. It's an interesting confluence, where the need for someone else kicks in during a bout of shrinking self-confidence, and this song gets it perfect. This performance is particularly beautiful, it seems carefully augmented from the recorded version but only just enough to give some climax and tension. Mournful horns, muffled kick, and Matt Berninger's somber baritone are a forlorn trio, bringing strength and space to a sad, honest refrain. What I love about this song is how contained it is, how focused...the structure is so simple, leaving little room for misinterpretation: sometimes you are good and grounded, so it seems, and inside, you're shrinking, so sometimes, you need your girl.

"I am good, I am grounded
Davy says that I look taller
I can’t get my head around it
I keep feeling smaller and smaller
I need my girl
I need my girl

Remember when you lost your shit and
Drove the car into the garden
And you got out and said I’m sorry
To the vines and no one saw it
I need my girl
I need my girl

I’m under the gun again
I know I was the 45 percent of then
I know I was a lot of things
But I am good, I am grounded
Davy says that I look taller
I can’t get my head around it
I keep feeling smaller and smaller
I need my girl
I need my girl

There’s some things that I should never
Laugh about in front of family
In a week we’ll be together
Try to call you when I’m landed
I need my girl
I need my girl

Remember when you said I’m sorry
To the vines and no one saw it
I’ll try to call you from the party
It’s full of punks and cannonballers
I need my girl
I need my girl

I’m under the gun again
I know I was the 45 percent of then
I know I was a lot of things
But I am good, I am grounded
Davy says that I look taller
I can’t get my head around it
I keep feeling smaller and smaller
I need my girl
I keep feeling smaller and smaller
I need my girl
I keep feeling smaller and smaller."

~I Need My Girl 

The National, Trouble Will Find Me

1/24/2014

 

It's been 10 years since The Killers released "Hot Fuss." I wonder what it would feel like in their shoes, where the first album and the first hits are the ones everyone wants from you. It's the classic catch-22 of striking gold - where do you from there? I've seen plenty of critics, and heard plenty of friends, deride their later work including the most recent, "Battle Born," for being too theatrical, too formulaic, too boring. But I've found I enjoy it, especially the title track. While the edge, the cynicism, of their earlier work has dulled some, it's been replaced with a wiser perspective. Instead of dark anguish of relationships like "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine" or "Mr.Brightside," there's contemplation, there's soul-searching. Instrumentally, where they once were trendsetters in pop rock, they've taken a more classic approach with clean guitar solos, well-balanced ambiance.  They've got that dessert feel, though, that Vegas-Route 66-cowboy approach they cultivated during "Sam's Town" and never really let go of.

One thing that's remained consistent is Brandon Flowers' songwriting - it is direct, it is cutting, it is comfort. It is literary, in a sort of post-modern way, about spirit and surroundings and sexuality. You could make an argument that, of all bands that have stuck around for a decade or so, The Killers have retained this sort of borderline pretension, not really *fitting* in any scenes and seeming like they'd be bothered if you tried to do so, but I've never been one to give much of a damn about that sort of thing if I'm enjoying listening to your music. And when you write songs this anthematic, how could I not?

"Up against the wall
There's something dying on the street
When they knock you down
You're gonna get back on your feet
Cause you can't stop now

Did they break your heart?
And did they cause your soul to mourn
Remember what I said
Boy, you was battle born
Cause you can't stop now.
Cause you can't stop now"

~Battle Born 

The Killers, Battle Born