Tracklist:
1. Far Away
2. Birdcage Chest
3. You Owe Me
Rate: 6/10
Tracklist:
1. Far Away
2. Birdcage Chest
3. You Owe Me
Rate: 6/10
This change was very much taken seriously with the third record of the band called “Last Night On Earth”, and for them the change started with the free download of “Wild Think” that was a good change for the band with the distinctive voice of Charlie Fink over ethereal synths and a very atmosphere quality of airy guitar and a little bit of electronic drumming, a really beautiful song that was pretty far from what the band was used to because this was not trying to approach some folk sound.
Everything became more evident when the lead single hit the scene “L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N”, that is a happy pop tune with pretty lyrics and a very upbeat spirit, a little bit of banjo but a distorted base. This song is a good one, the thing is that for the ones that are use to the previous work of the band it may come as a Californian sell out of the sound they had previously.
I think that the more relaxed and self aware epic sound that they were pointing previously is good, because at least they were trying to do something different, and not hang to the success of the sound and put themselves maybe like competitors against newcomers that are also doing good and probably would have done better than them in their old sound. It’s always good to have a band resign to their successful sound to conquer some new arena.
Now, the downside of the experiment is that there is never a really up point, is a very linear LP with not a single bad song and not a single good one, and not only is a good album but also the most fun that they’ve ever delivered, and I don’t know if I’m resisting to change, but I like to get my heart broken by a Noah & The Whale song every once in a while, they’re not the kind of bands you go looking for when you want to go dance on a beach in a pop scene, making songs like “Give It All Back” a real low point in the LP, the fun songs used to be really epic and now they’re just missing something, maybe is what happens when great folk musicians start exploring with electronic sounds, they get minimal and lose their epic qualities, it kind of happened with Beirut as well, but he managed to keep the same soul, which in case of Noah & The Whale they just get lost in this sort of happy and then suddenly getting dangerously close to some U2 kind of bull shit.
The old works of the band were good music, but this time around the album is catchy, and I don’t see anything wrong with being catchy, but seems like they’re approaching new markets and I fear that this catchiness could convert into making a bad record in the future, this one is not bad, at all, but is not better.
Tracklist:
1. Life Is Life
2. Tonight’s the Kind of Night
3. L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.
4. Wild Thing
5. Give it All Back
6. Just Me Before We Met
7. Paradise Stars
8. Waiting for My Chance to Come
9. The Line
10. Old Joy
Rate: 6.5/10
The debut couldn’t have any other name than Alexander and shows a lot of sides of Ebert that we’ve never seen before, specially his multi-instrumental abilities. For Alexander he made absolutely every sound, percussions, strings, wind, clapping, backing vocals, the sound is very full and still doesn’t loses the intimacy. If you Know Alexander’s past work you’ll definitely will want to come check this out, specially if you’re more into Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros.
With Edward Sharpe, Alexander has done exceptionally good joined work with the band members, and the song structures here is very similar but have that intimate sound and less band touch taking notice that Alexander is doing everything, that’s why it seems to present a more aesthetic performance and less a sort of musical experience that can be Edward Sharpe, but this doesn’t take away the effort, this doesn’t mean that the concept or intention of the record is not clear, because the only thing that is clear is that is a personal journey through life and spiritual search.
The money makers on this record are the sing along kind of songs, cheerful tunes with joyful spirit, but for me the slow songs create another level of intimacy needed to get a glimpse of the true nature of Alexander the joyful and Alexander the pensive, both in songwritting and in composition the result turns out to be absolutely stunning.
It might be a little protective to have a 10 band member band playing with you, and for a lot of artists of many bands, as creative as they are, don’t show solo material for fear of being too intimate or fear of sucking, a fear that Alexander might have had specially with the notoriety of Edward Sharpe. He even tells the story about never touching violin and wanting the bridge of “Glimpses”, and in the end, instead of calling someone to do it he took the risk and the song turns out to be Alexander as vulnerable as he can be, a very slow ballad, tender singing, echo that give a sense of church touching music, and then the bridge grows stunning in with a shy violin on the back adding simple charm. This little detail makes the album an even more honest one.
The sounds tend to have more awkward charms like with the plays of clapping and mouth sounds in “Let’s Make a Deal to Not Make a Deal”, and in general the album is less crowded and more intimate than what you can find with Edward Sharpe.
So yes, Alexander is amazing, and the word to describe this album is “stunning”.
Alexander Ebert :: “Truth” by NaturalBeardy
1. Let’s Win!
2. Awake My Body
3. Truth
4. In the Twilight
5. Bad Bad Love
6. Old Friend
7. Million Years
8. Remember Our Heart
9. Glimpses
10. Let’s Make a Deal to Not Make a Deal
Rate: 8.6/10
1. Firewall
2. Shell Games
3. Jejune Stars
4. Approximate Sunlight
5. Haile Selassie
6. A Machine Spiritual (In the People’s Key)
7. Triple Spiral
8. Beginner’s Mind
9. Ladder Song
10. One for You, One for Me
Rate: 6.8/10
For the indie scene The Boy With The Arab Strap was fantastic but never like If You’re Feeling Sinister, Beck was delivering Mutations and starting his way into scientology, Cat Power had Moon Pix, Air had Moon Safari and Sexy Boy was very sexy and popular, Spoon was doing fine with A Series Of Sneaks, and PJ Harvey did another memorable album asking herself “Is This Desire?”, but there was one band that had produced their second and last album, Neutral Milk Hotel with In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, and this was a special one from the cover art of REM’s design team and Jeff Magnum to the music in it.
The producer of this album was singer/songwriter man of The Apples In Stereo Robert Schneider that teamed up to record the album in Pet Sounds Studios, every name here is now classic and the critically acclaimed album included a variety of multi instrumentalists and was made as one set story, all songs were connected with the next and the effect is magic to the ears, trumpets, drums, guitars, everything in the right place, this album remains a classic and still sales, it became one of the most soled albums of 1998 and it remains selling, maybe because also the band never made anything else.
Tracklist:
1. The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One
2. The King of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two & Three
3. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
4. Two-Headed Boy
5. Fool
5. Holland, 1945
6. Communist Daughter
7. Oh Comely
8. Ghost
9. Untitled
10. Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2
Rate: 10/10
The Decemberist are used to delivering beautiful songs with complex instrumentation, just like all the super multi instrumental indie bands, but this time the sound is much more discreet but yet the same, what changed for this LP is the complexity of the songs because they tend to be more direct and with no great instrumentals interluding or dramatic changes. A change some might hate it when listening to the record.
This LP is less epic than the rest and I believe that the intention is for it to be more accessible to a general audience, the mood in this LP is much more positive, upbeat and happy than the previous, I wouldn’t say the best of The Decemberist, but definitely a good way to start the year that, the test will be if it was good enough to stick not only in their previous fans and generate a new fan base. Still with the less spectacular album, The Decemberist manage to make a few remarkable songs in this LP that don’t forgive the less spectacular twist but demonstrate that this is a band that can still be great and there’s no reason to stop watching them.
Still there are good songs worth the listen, with quality for any Decemberist record, these are January Hymn, June Hymn, This is Why We Fight and Dear Avery.
Tracklist:
1. Don’t Carry It All
2. Calamity Song
3. Rise To Me
4. Rox In The Box
5. January Hymn
6. Down By The Water
7. All Arise!
8. June Hymn
9. This Is Why We Fight
10. Dear Avery
Rate: 6/10
Most of it has to do on the clever songwriting, probably because the members of this band are from Oxford and we are talking PhD’s. They write very simple songs with very intricate metaphors.
The folk sounds in here give a sort of remembrance and sort of feeling of clever British folk and indie pop bands like Belle and Sebastian, and I’m pretty sure that given the quality of this first LP, something like this could be in their future, Its not like they’re the next Belle and Sebastian, or that they sound nostalgic of the early work from the band, not at all, just the clever lines and the fact that they do a music genre that is a little similar.
The only thing is that the album can get too British and most songs are similar and standard, some of them very good, but not all of them excellent.
Tracklist:
1. Zorbing
2. I Saw You Blink
3. Fuel Up
4. The Coldharbour Road
5. Boats And Trains
6. We Are The Battery Human
7. Here Comes The Blackout
8. Watching Birds
9. On The Rocks
10. The End Of The Movie
11. Long Distance Lullaby
Rate: 6.8/10