Heartache With Hard Work

That Night in June – Shannon McArdle

So here’s the situation. An artist puts out a record that’s okay but nothing special. Except for two songs that are just out of this world good. More albums are released all of which hover in the general territory of listenable but not particularly moving. At what point do you write of those two tracks as an aberration?

In this example, the two tracks are “Catch a Collapsing Star” and “The Lethal Temptress” and the artist is Shannon McArdle (formerly of The Mendoza Line). Those two songs are revelatory, amazing, and grow with every listen. But, on the whole, the rest of her work with The Mendoza Line felt like a pale imitation. I never got around to reviewing their follow-up/break-up record last year because it totally failed to motivate me. And now that the band (and the marriage underneath it) is no more she’s got a solo record called, evocatively, Summer of the Whore.

To be clear, it’s not a bad record. Actually, it’s rather good. As a stylized representation of the pain that accompanies a failed relationship it’s powerful and jagged. And for people who are into the style of tightly-wound smothering folk-driven breakup songs, it’s probably all that you’d ever want.

But the thing is, I just can’t get into it. The distinguishing thing about the two tracks mentioned above was the way they soared above everything else. The expansiveness of the sound was the perfect counterpoint to the cutting honesty of the lyrics. Summer of the Whore certainly doesn’t soar. Instead, it’s deliberately stifling, almost suffocating in its closeness. The result is a record that, I think, succeeds in what it’s trying to do, but which fails to really click for me.

That doesn’t mean there’s nothing here I enjoy. “Paint the Walls” has a wispy texture that evokes a sense of distance essential for the rest of the album. The title track reeks of a bitter self-loathing that’s tremendously powerful. “This Longing” is a light little song that takes on a much more sinister context once you recognize it within the broader context of an album about the power of self-deception. And “That Night in June” is an excellent song that almost completely passed me by the first few times I listened to the record. It’s a slow-burner, the sort of track you must treat delicately, letting the sleepy temp of a slow waltz unfold itself. And if you’re in the right mood the violin solo that comes in after about two minutes will make you swoon utterly. It’s a glimmer of what I keep hoping she’ll eventually put together for a whole album.

Based on the style and attitude of her work, this sort of thing seems to be intentionally used sparingly. Which returns me to contemplating how strange (and sad) it is that even those artists who are capable of so perfectly evoking everything the works for me may simply have little interest in continuing to make that sort of music. Jeff Mangum (Neutral Milk Hotel) is only the most extreme example. There are also plenty of cases like Shannon McArdle where it’s not a matter of being unable to recapture lightning in a jar but rather simply a divergence of paths. She continues to make great records, they’re just not what I keep hoping for.

New Country – Birdmonster

Back in the old days, there were “blog bands” – a phenomenon which appears to have peaked in 2006, when the music-blogging world was small enough that waves could really take hold. One of the big examples was Birdmonster who rose to fame on the back of a 3-song EP and some good live shows. When their full-length appeared, it received some rave reviews from the blog world (including right here), but by the end of the year it seemed like people had sort of moved on.

Not me, though. I still enjoy No Midnight a lot and listen to it regularly. And “Balcony” remains one of the finest songs of this decade in my book. So I was pretty excited to hear that they would be releasing their sophomore record. The thing is that while From the Mountain to the Sea is a pretty good record, it doesn’t carry anything close to the same rush of their debut.

Part of the problem is that the Americana elements which were strong influences before are now pretty much the whole show. And while that’s not necessarily a problem, they are a far, far better band when they’re letting everything loose. Where this record suffers is on the slower tracks that tread dangerously close to the world of mid-tempo drabness. A related problem is that on most tracks, the vocals are the absolute focal point, which is precisely the opposite of how it should be. I like his voice alright, but Peter Arcuni is not a crooner by any stretch. He sounds best when battling against the crashing of guitars and drums – something which happens all too rarely this time around. Mostly, I agree with Eric that it “needs a little kick in the ass.”

All that said, this remains a very solid record – and one that grows on you if you have a little bit of patience. Plus, “New Country” reveals that the more melodic driven structure I was complaining about actually can produce an absolutely stunning song when it works out right. The interplay between the vocals, the guitars, the touches of the keyboard, and the insistent percussion works almost to perfection. On the other side of the equation, “Iditarod” is a barn-burner of a track – every bit as powerful as their earlier stuff.

I saw them in San Francisco a month or two back and I can tell you that some of these songs sound a LOT better in the less restrained context of a live show. I definitely think this is a record that would have sounded better without the accoutrements of a studio. As it is, it’s a somewhat flawed, but occasionally very powerful album from a band I will continue to expect great things from.

Still a Long Way to Go – James Dean Bradfield

I’ve flown a LOT in the past few weeks. Several times back and forth across the country, with a fair number of stopovers. While boarding all those planes I noticed something – not something particularly exciting or surprising, but something I think is important precisely because of its banality. It’s this: all of the people in first class (or who get the A+ numbers of the “business class” section for Southwest) are men. Every once in a while there’s a woman, but I was not on a single flight where there was more than one. Plus, they’re pretty much all white.

I was reminded of this on reading the list of Senate Chairs for the upcoming term. 19 people, two women. Neither of the Hawaiian Senators are white, but the rest are.

Obama will be the first black president, but let’s not forget that he was also only the fifth black US Senator. If you want an idea of just how preposterously white the Senate is, check out their page devoted to the ethnic diversity of the institution. 19 non-white members over its entire history.

So yeah, there’s still a lot to be done.

You know who doesn’t need to get appointed to the Senate? Caroline Kennedy, that’s who.

I don’t have any particular problem with her. I’m sure she’d be a fine Senator. However, I’m generally opposed to political dynasties, and that’s especially true in the case of an appointment. Kevin Drum puts it well: “Rich and famous people already have a huge leg up when it comes to winning political office, but at least they still have to run and win.”

Another thought, spurred by this and (more obviously) the ridiculousness of the Blagojevich wheeling and dealing: can we do away with this whole process of appointments? Hold a special election and let people actually vote on who is going in. Particularly when the advantages of incumbency are so strong, it just seems depressing to let one person have such a huge role in determining who has a strong chance of being a Senator for a decade or more.

If A Song Could Get Me You – Marit Larsen

I fell head over heels in love with Marit Larsen almost exactly two years ago based solely on one single song. She’s from Norway (and apparently a big deal in those parts) but getting access to any of her music out here was virtually impossible. So I was left with merely the glorious “Only a Fool” and eventually a few other tracks from that record, but it took almost another year before I finally obtained the whole thing.

Well, things move a little quicker these days so I’ve got her new record The Chase in time to review it for 2008. It’s still not readily available in the US, but it may very well be worth tracking down, or at least paying attention for the eventual American release. First things first, let’s admit that this is not the sort of record you’re going to use to burnish your indie credentials. While it has a buoyancy and unadulterated feeling to it that you will seldom find in the over-produced and stultified teen-pop that tops the chart, it is still definitely pop music.

That stipulated, let’s focus on a few things that make it come to life. First, there’s the harmonica that darts in and out to add a burst of life (see “The Chase” for example). Second, there’s the angelic chorus, given most obvious showing on the first single “If A Song Could Get Me You.” Third, the more folksy tracks (like “Fuel”) which sound intimate and genuine.

My one complaint is actually very similar to the one I registered about Anathallo (a very, very different band) yesterday: most of the songs lack a certain drive. What made “Only a Fool” such a brilliant song was the lilting groove to it. There’s nothing like that here. These aren’t ballads, for the most part, but they feel like ballads in their lack of locomotion. One of her major appeals is the deep sentimentality, but without the counterweight of a robust rhythm section it sometimes strides a bit too far into the realm of overwrought preciousness. On the more quick-paced tracks, things veer dangerously close to the realm of pure pop – see “Addicted” or “Ten Steps.”

Final verdict: it’s a solid record with a couple standouts, but can be a little bit much to absorb in large doses. For a while I thought it would just sneak into my top 25 for the year, but I’ve made a few recent discoveries that will probably leave this one just on the outside.

There’s a ton of good albums that came out this year that I enjoyed but never got around to writing about. A few of them are so good that they’ll make my year-end list. So I may put off covering them until that (unless I really get into the writing mood). But there’s also another group of solid-but-not-spectacular records that won’t make the list, but deserve a little bit of attention.

So my project for the next week or so, while I’m compiling that final list, is to cover all the ones that won’t quite make it. I’ll be abandoning my usual strategy of using 1000 words when 50 might suffice. So if you sometimes get sick of wading through all my prose, this is the time to get the short-and-sweet reviews for the year.

The River – Anathallo

First on the list is Canopy Glow, the new record from Anathallo. I know Taylor gets annoyed at people reviewing this record and referencing Sufjan. That said, it’s just too easy so I’m going to do it anyways. Sorry. Lush instrumentation from a wide array (including the ever-more-rare autoharp), choir-like backing vocals, songs that spiral up and up and up until they’re so large that they write themselves in luminous letters all across the sky…

The Sufjan references aren’t a bad thing. Like I said in my last post about The Gaslight Anthem, just because you walk along a path laid by an earlier artist doesn’t make your work derivative. There’s a strong case to be made for artists that can create new textures and meanings out of a sound that was very good to start with. And that’s what Canopy Glow does. It’s not as effervescent or heart-piercing as Illinois, but what could be?

If there’s a flaw, it’s the tendency of a number of tracks to drift off a bit (something the Pitchfork review actually gets spot-on). There’s nice stuff going on conceptually all across the record, but the best songs (“The River,” “All the First Pages,” and “Noni’s Field”) are the ones with an insistence that pushes you forward. The second half of “The River” in particular is the finest piece of music they’ve yet created.

Canopy Glow is the sort of record that’s intricate and fascinating enough that I find myself listening to it more than some other records I probably like more in a strict sense. For that reason, it has potential to be a grower. For now, though, I don’t think it’s going to find a place in my favorite records of the year.

Those who have been reading here for any amount of time will know how I feel about Bruce Springsteen. To truly appreciate where I’m coming from in the following review, it might be worth checking out a post I wrote a few years back, explaining why I think music in this style can be earnest without necessarily descending into pure sentimentalism. For those who don’t want to read the whole thing, I’ll quote briefly:

Lines like “Together Wendy we’ll live with the sadness / I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul” suggest that, even back at the height of the “Born to Run” phenomenon, he was very aware that the redemption promised in these songs was temporary at best. You dreamed crazy dreams, you loved like crazy, you drove away into the night, you pulled out of the town full of losers because to not do so would be to succumb to the weariness. But Bruce knew that the youthful abandon would not be enough. I do not get the impression that a life of perfect happiness awaits around the corner for him and Mary. Instead, they will find pain and sadness, but in the face of that pain, the best they can hope to do is to refuse to give up.

In short, while it’s all too easy to castigate bad music for trading in formulaic gestures utterly lacking in emotional depth, I think what people fail to recognize is that this music is bad because it’s bad, not because it’s impossible to write songs that genuinely engage big concepts like pain, loss, love, and the American Dream.

Springsteen has inspired countless imitators who trade in clichés about redemption, cars, rivers, and desperation. And in my honest moments I’ll admit that I have a soft spot for even the worst of these, simply because there’s something implacable about that Born to Run sound that can sustain itself through even the most dire regurgitations. But I would never claim that this is fine art.

However, there is another strain of followers who leap whole-heartedly into the feeling of Springsteen. In so doing, they evoke a long history of American identity, stretching back through folk heroes like Woody Guthrie to authors like Steinbeck and the people who moved out to homesteads on the frontier, braving the cold and the wild all in the hopes of finding something better.

It’s a noble legacy, but also a deadly one. Grand dreams sustain us in our hardest times – it’s what makes us want to believe, need to believe in the myth of Tom Joad – but those same dreams also contribute to the bust and boom cycles that brought on the Depression in the first place. In the eyes of Nick Caraway you can see the faint twinkling of Tom Joad. And that long line of Okies trudging across America desperately searching for a job or a full meal – if you trace it back far enough, you’ll find yourself in the midst of one of Jay Gatsby’s famous parties.

That’s what Springsteen captures: the enigma, the longing, in all of its passion and full belief. And it’s what rescues the bombast of “Born to Run” or “Thunder Road.” These songs explode with a fervor that lays bare all that is buried in their subjects. Youth, wild abandon, a belief that true meaning can be found on just the other side of the hill. And a secret terror that all those dreams may have already passed you by.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that if you approach The Gaslight Anthem with a cynical ear, you’re likely to completely miss the point. On their sophomore record The ’59 Sound, they’ve tapped into the same wellspring that The Boss drew from: finding a power in rock and roll that can speak beyond particular stories and evoke some larger meaning. There are certainly echoes or even direct references all over the place, but it’s important to note that this is not a band simply trying to graft “the Springsteen sound” onto something else. It’s a natural evolution, and a perfect joining, between sounds. They also hail from Jersey but they come back to Springsteen via a trip into a more Chicago-punk sound. And most importantly, this a band who genuinely cares about the people in their songs – they are not mere props to spit out some formulaic lines about highways and the working class. These are stories that feel real, evocative, and purposeful.

Things kick off with the sound of a needle dropping on a record. It’s a classic trick, designed to evoke an era that has passed us by. And they go even a step further, when the first word that bursts forth is “Mary.” It’s so audacious that you almost can’t believe it. And yet, what distinguishes this from a million imitators is that they can back it up with a sound that simply defies all snap judgments. When you hear that chorus you feel it all that way through your body. There’s a weariness betrayed by the line “everybody leaves, and I’d expect as much from you” and yet instead of succumbing, it rides that crest of passion and pain.

If that’s not enough to convince you, all doubts should be erased about a minute into the second song, the title track. A eulogy to a dead friend, it manages to be both joyous and introspective. The singer wonders about the instant of death, and hopes that the final moment was at least accompanied by a flash of happy memories. It’s anthemic in all the best ways. Not because it tries to make itself large, but because of the way it takes an intensely personal and individual moment and lets it burst forth – inviting you into a world where you have permission to set aside the jaded, ironic distance that convinces us that it’s weak to feel pain and sorrow.

“Old White Lincoln” plays on the story of those car-fueled redemptive dreams, and dwells in a strange place between the innocence of youth and the sad memories of times that have passed. It’s not a cynical song, but you still get the sense that there’s something desperately missing here. A few stray details ring through with absolute clarity, but you can’t quite grasp the thing that connects yourself to the person who felt that way.

“High Lonesome” raises the stakes once again, offering one of a summation of the entire record, with a frank admission of “I always kinda sorta wished I looked like Elvis.” Their hearts and influences are on their sleeves, to be sure, but that’s really what makes it all work. And that set-up is what makes the rest of the chorus so powerful: “And in my head there’s all these classic cars and outlaw cowboy bands / I always kinda sorta wished I was someone else.” It reveals a self-awareness that’s necessary to set apart the good songs from the great. The wishfulness, the way that this sound is leapt into out a pure love for the music of their youth but also out of a desperation to keep a sad and lonely world from spinning out of control. This is an album about growing up in love with rock and roll – an homage but also an attempt to find their own place within the elements that offered them meaning.

Combined, the opening four tracks are utterly beyond reproach. It could rival pretty much any other record released this decade, and frankly is as good an introduction to a record as anything The Boss himself has done since Born to Run.

The record cools off a bit in the second half, with the relatively forgettable “Miles Davis and the Cool,” a couple tracks that go for gritty but don’t quite make it (“The Patient Ferris Wheel” and “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”) and two tracks that cross the line from being tastefully influenced by Springsteen (“Meet Me By the River’s Edge” and “The Backseat”). The former of those even includes the painful line: “We tattooed lines beneath our skin / No surrender, my Bobby Jean.” Yikes.

As a palliative to that, it’s worth going back to one of the first half standouts, “High Lonesome” for a much more effective incorporation of an old Bruce line:

There were Southern accents
On the radio
As I drove home
And at night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
It’s a pretty good song, maybe you know the rest
Maybe you know the rest

None of those songs are bad, though – they just don’t reach the heights of the first half. And side two has a couple shining bright spots, too. First and foremost is “Here’s Lookin’ At You, Kid” which puts to shame every other band who has ever done the “11 rock songs and 1 acoustic track” thing. It provides a perfect change of pace, a little bit more introspection, and a spot of a self-deprecating sadness.

Side two also features what’s probably the best pure, good-times rock and roll track “Casanova, Baby!” It’s also the closest they get to a full-scale Born to Run style take on the power of simply getting the hell out of this town.

The ’59 Sound is not a perfect record. But it is a stunning achievement. It’s the sort of album that you can’t be shy about. You won’t appreciate it if you don’t jump in completely. Accept that it is a flawed but beautiful record, don’t read too deeply into the countless references, and just let the feeling of growing up in a world of rock and roll wash over you. You won’t regret it.

MP3s:
The ’59 Sound
High Lonesome

He Was Gone – Gladshot

Well, who would have guessed. William Jefferson, the corrupt Democrat from Louisiana (you know, the one found with $90,000 in his freezer) managed to lose his bid for a 10th term last night. Speaking as a partisan Democrat, I have to admit I’m pretty pleased. As I said last month, even though I think the institutional effects of government mean partisanship should usually be prioritized over modest differences, cases like this are pretty clearly beyond the pale.

Good job electorate. Now I just hope that in two years time the primary voters pick a candidate who is a little less corrupt and we win back this heavily Democratic district.

Gladshot have a record called Burn Up and Shine.

Heroes – Twiggy Frostbite

A moon setting over a stormy ocean. A man stands at his window watching the light scatter itself on the crashing waves. Far in the distance a light flashes, once every few seconds – a lonely lighthouse. He turns away, takes a sip of brandy. The wind continues to howl outside but the children pay it no mind as they race around the tree, hanging lights and ornaments, flushed with the thought of the coming winter: of snow and presents and a brief respite from school. And out from the radio drifts this song, sounding like a Scandinavian Regina Spektor with orchestration from Portishead.

The band is (somewhat unfortunately) called Twiggy Frostbite, and their debut album Through Fire will be available in early 2009.

Here’s a record about which I’m having a lot of trouble identifying my feelings. It’s called Queens Die Proudly and it comes from Juliette Commagere.

On one hand, it’s got plenty of elements it’s a little hard to respect: ranging from a sort of Kate Bush on Lilith Fair amalgamation of synths and halfway constructed pop hooks (“Everything I Love”) to a track which was perfectly described by Stytzer as “so grandiose that it almost becomes conceited in a Meat Loaf kind of way” (“Overcome”) to the I-don’t-even-know what’s happening of the title track. Throw in a few silky pop ballads of varying quality and you’ve got a record that doesn’t seem particularly impressive.

The thing is, while I feel a little bit torn about whether I ought to like some of these songs, I find myself continually drawn back, particularly to the epic, thoroughly over-the-top, endlessly perplexing, but absolutely glorious majesty of “Overcome.” It draws you in completely and it’s only afterward that you reflect a little bit about the underlying silliness. But really, life is all about a series of moments, so why let a better judgment informed by distance and social mores interfere with such a stupendous song?

Overcome – Juliette Commagere