Marc
There is a crack in everything God has made. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Music Post:
One. I have had the self-titled Denali album for almost a year now, but have just recently become overly obsessive-compulsive about listening to it. Trying to describe how Maura Davis, lead-singer and principle songwriter, sings is next to impossible. It's like listening to vulnerability trying to wrap itself around the idea of a passive-aggressive approach towards rock music.***1*** Maybe. I love trying to discern what's going on in the backgrounds of almost all of the songs -- the unintelligble words on "French Mistake", the clicks and fuzz on "Time Away", the apparent creak of a drummer's seat in "Function", the old time recording playing amidst the reverse-waved bells in "Where I Landed". They all sound like mistakes that they've left in and intermittently decided to pan across the headphones. The only problem that I have with the whole thing is that it's too short, and that it doesn't come with a centerfold insert of the lead singer.
Two. The latest Alkaline Trio effort, entitled Good Mourning, is (though Scoot is right, this is a cliche thing to say) their best effort since Goddammit. SPIN claims it's better than their freshman effort, but I think we're all in agreeance that, barring some sort of self-imposed re-awakening towards writing fast, hard, rock tunes, the Alkaline Trio will most certainly never duplicate what they accomplished on Goddammit. Good Mourning, though, is a nice try. Their best so far. "Fatally Yours" almost ... almost! ... sounds like the intro on "Cringe". It's got the same sort of pick-scraping-against the bridge type of urgency that every other Trio song since Goddammit has lacked. Songs like "Continental" and "We've Had Enough" put anything and everything on both Maybe I'll Catch Fire and From Here to Infirmary to shame.***2*** In short, it has felt like people have been waiting for the Alkaline Trio to do something since they left Asian Man for Vagrant. Their first try was subpar. This time, though, it seems like they've finally found the path that Goddammit started them out on.
Three. I like the Postal Service. I feel like a pussy sometimes when I realize that people standing close to me can hear me listening to the repetitive "thump-thump" of a typical Postal Sevice tune from their full-length, Give Up. But I've finally come to the realization that I don't care. I like emo-techno. What I didn't like about the buzz concerning this band was that every reviewer, no matter who they were, all stated that they could never duplicate "(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan", mostly because I had never heard that song, and didn't like the fact that I didn't know what everyone was talking about. I wanted to be comfortable with the fact that I liked the Postal Service's full-length because I had only ever heard the full-length, and not feel inadequate for having missed out on what should've been a one-off collaboration between a guy that sang for a band I semi-dug, and a guy that I'd heard of but never heard. That all changed last week when I broke down and downloaded that song. I hate to concede this, but everyone was right. This is what the Postal Service should've been. And it's slowly ruining the Postal Service for me. Every time I hear the boring "thump-thump" of one of their songs now, I think to myself, "They didn't do that on that "Evan and Chan" song, right? Why do they need to do it on this one?"
Four. I've written too much already, and I am having trouble keeping my eyes open. Section four will be significantly shortened tonight.
Up Next: "Relief" by Denali; "Blue in the Face" by the Alkaline Trio; and, "39" by Queen.
Tomorrow: Last class of the semester. Alcohol.
***1*** Did I really just write that sentence?
***2*** The latter left such a small impression on me that I had to go on the Vagrant website to look it up.
There is a crack in everything God has made. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Music Post:
One. I have had the self-titled Denali album for almost a year now, but have just recently become overly obsessive-compulsive about listening to it. Trying to describe how Maura Davis, lead-singer and principle songwriter, sings is next to impossible. It's like listening to vulnerability trying to wrap itself around the idea of a passive-aggressive approach towards rock music.***1*** Maybe. I love trying to discern what's going on in the backgrounds of almost all of the songs -- the unintelligble words on "French Mistake", the clicks and fuzz on "Time Away", the apparent creak of a drummer's seat in "Function", the old time recording playing amidst the reverse-waved bells in "Where I Landed". They all sound like mistakes that they've left in and intermittently decided to pan across the headphones. The only problem that I have with the whole thing is that it's too short, and that it doesn't come with a centerfold insert of the lead singer.
Two. The latest Alkaline Trio effort, entitled Good Mourning, is (though Scoot is right, this is a cliche thing to say) their best effort since Goddammit. SPIN claims it's better than their freshman effort, but I think we're all in agreeance that, barring some sort of self-imposed re-awakening towards writing fast, hard, rock tunes, the Alkaline Trio will most certainly never duplicate what they accomplished on Goddammit. Good Mourning, though, is a nice try. Their best so far. "Fatally Yours" almost ... almost! ... sounds like the intro on "Cringe". It's got the same sort of pick-scraping-against the bridge type of urgency that every other Trio song since Goddammit has lacked. Songs like "Continental" and "We've Had Enough" put anything and everything on both Maybe I'll Catch Fire and From Here to Infirmary to shame.***2*** In short, it has felt like people have been waiting for the Alkaline Trio to do something since they left Asian Man for Vagrant. Their first try was subpar. This time, though, it seems like they've finally found the path that Goddammit started them out on.
Three. I like the Postal Service. I feel like a pussy sometimes when I realize that people standing close to me can hear me listening to the repetitive "thump-thump" of a typical Postal Sevice tune from their full-length, Give Up. But I've finally come to the realization that I don't care. I like emo-techno. What I didn't like about the buzz concerning this band was that every reviewer, no matter who they were, all stated that they could never duplicate "(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan", mostly because I had never heard that song, and didn't like the fact that I didn't know what everyone was talking about. I wanted to be comfortable with the fact that I liked the Postal Service's full-length because I had only ever heard the full-length, and not feel inadequate for having missed out on what should've been a one-off collaboration between a guy that sang for a band I semi-dug, and a guy that I'd heard of but never heard. That all changed last week when I broke down and downloaded that song. I hate to concede this, but everyone was right. This is what the Postal Service should've been. And it's slowly ruining the Postal Service for me. Every time I hear the boring "thump-thump" of one of their songs now, I think to myself, "They didn't do that on that "Evan and Chan" song, right? Why do they need to do it on this one?"
Four. I've written too much already, and I am having trouble keeping my eyes open. Section four will be significantly shortened tonight.
Up Next: "Relief" by Denali; "Blue in the Face" by the Alkaline Trio; and, "39" by Queen.
Tomorrow: Last class of the semester. Alcohol.
***1*** Did I really just write that sentence?
***2*** The latter left such a small impression on me that I had to go on the Vagrant website to look it up.
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