Upfront disclosure: This review will be biased.
Unlike you, I don't send emails/write handwritten notes to bands that I like. I have done it twice. One was a completely unfair request for the Mountain Goats to come back to Salt Lake City something like three months after they played there because I had just discovered the Sunset Tree and I really wanted to see it played live.
The other time was when I wrote Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater. I was really into the Winged Life album and the Thieves EP (side note: I just hit I Can't Wait on my A-Z Listening Experience and I had the same experience that I had when I first heard it 11 years ago: This guy's voice is incredible), so I was exploring their website and they had a demo up for a song called Turn Your Transmitters Off. I loved the song, but I couldn't understand all the lyrics at one point in the song, so I sent an email to Jonathan Meiburg asking him: "On Turn Your Transmitters Off, what is the missing word in the phrase 'It was a ______ disaster'?" He responded quickly: "It's 'f@#$#$%', I'm afraid." I was impressed that he responded AND that that his response was so gentlemanly. (Side note: Turn Your Transmitters Off became Red Sea, Black Sea on Palo Santo, but *music snob alert* I still prefer the demo.)
Since that time, I have been all aboard the Jonathan Meiburg/Shearwater train. I have become more and more convinced that Meiburg sharpened Will Sheff's genius and that his leaving Okkervil River in 2008 to focus on Shearwater full-time was a crippling blow to Okkervil River (I don't think that Sheff's fit of nostalgic solipsism that was The Silver Gymnasium [their worst album] happens if Meiburg is still in the band because then Sheff doesn't view himself as the undisputed leader of OR).
One nagging thing I have felt about Shearwater since they became a fully-realized band and not an Okkervil side project is that although their albums were at various times brilliant, they also had some languid moments. (I am talking about the island trilogy of Palo Santo, Rooks, and the Golden Archipelego). Sometimes I felt like that was just part of the band's MO, the quiet, the slow tempos, sometimes breaking out in rampages but many times there was barely anything there. Each of the albums, though, had one really solid loud, fast-tempo song and I always wondered whether there was friction within the band, if someone wanted to go harder and faster and someone wanted to go slower. I read one time that the drummer, named Thor, was a believer in minimalist drumming.
Thor left the band after the Island Trilogy.
The next album, Animal Life, was ferocious. And it was also amazing. There are still some quiet moments, but nothing as torpid as on previous albums.
Which means I was beyond excited for Jet Plane and Oxbow. And, at first, I thought Meiburg had blown it.
Why? Electronics. The album begins with Prime and Prime begins with some synth arpeggios. And that synth stays throughout the song, although ultimately buried in drums and guitar. And then Quiet Americans starts up and it sounds like the beginning of a really great industrial track. Great sound, but not really a classic Shearwater sound. A Long Time Away gets off great, but because I already have the electronic concern in my head, I am much more aware of the little descending synth line that appears throughout the song. And this obsession just grows so that I stop paying attention to the songs and just keep thinking: "Why are they ruining their great sound?"
And then Pale Kings bursts forth and it's just a complete and total Shearwater track in the veins of You As You Were. It's driving, it's radiant, it's upbeat, it is thrilling, it is Shearwater at their finest. And I felt like it's this beautiful gesture from Meiburg saying, "If you were distracted by the electronics, here's this non-electronic gem. The songs, the lyrics, the sounds, they are all still there. Now go back and listen to those first five tracks and realize that the electronics don't factor into them nearly as much as you thought they did." And I went back and listened to those first five tracks with Pale Kings as my reference and absolutely loved them.
But the other surprising thing about the album is that Pale Kings not only unlocks the key to understanding the first five tracks but it also leads you into the spectacular second half that is much more of the Animal Joy sound. (And, in the case of Radio Silence, sounds like a prime British Sea Power cut from the Do You Like Rock Music? era. That guitar line that rips through the song, the call of "disarray", followed by the imploring "I need it I need I need it" is so BSP.)
Now, let's answer the questions:
How many football plays for Tim Tebow can you make from derivations of the title of the album?
(1) Jet Plane and Tebow: Zone read for Tebow with a really fast halfback as the option.
(2) JetBow and Oxplane: Sprint out for Tebow with a fullback in the flat as a safety valve
(3) TePlane and Oxbow: Goal line play, O line forms an oxbow, Tebow makes like a plane and flies over the line into the end zone
(4) Jet Plane Te "is a freaking ox"Bow: Short yardage, shotgun play, Tebow makes like a fullback and plows ahead like an ox.
The answer is 4 plays.
Which song title do I always get wrong in my head? Pale Kings. Every time I think of the name of the song, I think it is called White Knights. Meiburg's title is better.
Which song could be played during the credits of a Jerry Lewis movie to help people feel forget that the movie had no real ending?
None. But maybe, if you translated Stray Light at Clouds Hill into French, it could work some magic.
Which song should you not play during the credits of a Jerry Lewis movie because it would further the ennui of the patrons?
That would be Long Time Away. "I just watched 90 minutes of a movie about a sad clown without an ending? And now there is a song telling me that I have been a long time away from my life where anything would have been better than suffering through this?" *spiking ennui levels*
Let's say you are in line for a concert at the 9:30 Club and in a flash of an eye, you are caught in a snob-off about this album with a bearded doughy fellow. What's the winning criticism?
"Electronics" is too obvious, and it's likely the shiv that beardo has brought to the fight. You gotta go with track sequencing. "I mean, it's a brilliant album, but Pale Kings is such a rush that you have to put a really quality track right after it. And Only Child just starts off so small that it just kills some of the momentum of the album. Glass Bones should be track 7." Beardo hasn't considered it. You just pulled a Marion-drinking-game-in-Tibet move. Collect your winnings. (I think some metaphors got mixed in there...)
Grade: A+
One nagging thing I have felt about Shearwater since they became a fully-realized band and not an Okkervil side project is that although their albums were at various times brilliant, they also had some languid moments. (I am talking about the island trilogy of Palo Santo, Rooks, and the Golden Archipelego). Sometimes I felt like that was just part of the band's MO, the quiet, the slow tempos, sometimes breaking out in rampages but many times there was barely anything there. Each of the albums, though, had one really solid loud, fast-tempo song and I always wondered whether there was friction within the band, if someone wanted to go harder and faster and someone wanted to go slower. I read one time that the drummer, named Thor, was a believer in minimalist drumming.
Thor left the band after the Island Trilogy.
The next album, Animal Life, was ferocious. And it was also amazing. There are still some quiet moments, but nothing as torpid as on previous albums.
Which means I was beyond excited for Jet Plane and Oxbow. And, at first, I thought Meiburg had blown it.
Why? Electronics. The album begins with Prime and Prime begins with some synth arpeggios. And that synth stays throughout the song, although ultimately buried in drums and guitar. And then Quiet Americans starts up and it sounds like the beginning of a really great industrial track. Great sound, but not really a classic Shearwater sound. A Long Time Away gets off great, but because I already have the electronic concern in my head, I am much more aware of the little descending synth line that appears throughout the song. And this obsession just grows so that I stop paying attention to the songs and just keep thinking: "Why are they ruining their great sound?"
And then Pale Kings bursts forth and it's just a complete and total Shearwater track in the veins of You As You Were. It's driving, it's radiant, it's upbeat, it is thrilling, it is Shearwater at their finest. And I felt like it's this beautiful gesture from Meiburg saying, "If you were distracted by the electronics, here's this non-electronic gem. The songs, the lyrics, the sounds, they are all still there. Now go back and listen to those first five tracks and realize that the electronics don't factor into them nearly as much as you thought they did." And I went back and listened to those first five tracks with Pale Kings as my reference and absolutely loved them.
But the other surprising thing about the album is that Pale Kings not only unlocks the key to understanding the first five tracks but it also leads you into the spectacular second half that is much more of the Animal Joy sound. (And, in the case of Radio Silence, sounds like a prime British Sea Power cut from the Do You Like Rock Music? era. That guitar line that rips through the song, the call of "disarray", followed by the imploring "I need it I need I need it" is so BSP.)
Now, let's answer the questions:
How many football plays for Tim Tebow can you make from derivations of the title of the album?
(1) Jet Plane and Tebow: Zone read for Tebow with a really fast halfback as the option.
(2) JetBow and Oxplane: Sprint out for Tebow with a fullback in the flat as a safety valve
(3) TePlane and Oxbow: Goal line play, O line forms an oxbow, Tebow makes like a plane and flies over the line into the end zone
(4) Jet Plane Te "is a freaking ox"Bow: Short yardage, shotgun play, Tebow makes like a fullback and plows ahead like an ox.
The answer is 4 plays.
Which song title do I always get wrong in my head? Pale Kings. Every time I think of the name of the song, I think it is called White Knights. Meiburg's title is better.
Which song could be played during the credits of a Jerry Lewis movie to help people feel forget that the movie had no real ending?
None. But maybe, if you translated Stray Light at Clouds Hill into French, it could work some magic.
Which song should you not play during the credits of a Jerry Lewis movie because it would further the ennui of the patrons?
That would be Long Time Away. "I just watched 90 minutes of a movie about a sad clown without an ending? And now there is a song telling me that I have been a long time away from my life where anything would have been better than suffering through this?" *spiking ennui levels*
Let's say you are in line for a concert at the 9:30 Club and in a flash of an eye, you are caught in a snob-off about this album with a bearded doughy fellow. What's the winning criticism?
"Electronics" is too obvious, and it's likely the shiv that beardo has brought to the fight. You gotta go with track sequencing. "I mean, it's a brilliant album, but Pale Kings is such a rush that you have to put a really quality track right after it. And Only Child just starts off so small that it just kills some of the momentum of the album. Glass Bones should be track 7." Beardo hasn't considered it. You just pulled a Marion-drinking-game-in-Tibet move. Collect your winnings. (I think some metaphors got mixed in there...)
Grade: A+
1 comment:
Good work, Doug. Your Tebow plays are outstanding and the track sequencing argument is infallible.
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