THE ALBUM CLUB.

[S.K.o.S.]

Through two and a half songs I was not enjoying this at all.  Didn't like the vocals, and it's not the singing that's bad per se, but the effects they use, the distortion & harmonization (multiple voices) reminds me of, I don't know, the Byrds?  Something from the '60s or '70s that gets me thinking of horrible brown and orange interior design.  And the lyrics are so dreary too.  I was gonna quote that "If we're lucky we'll get old and die" line, and then they slog through that "Slowly, this repulsion leads to nausea" part on March of Progress.

 

Then suddenly they get to 4:45 of March of Progress and it's all sparkly and fantastic.  I guess this is one of those tonal shifts Randy mentioned.  That happens a couple more times on the album, a song becomes really great out of nowhere.  There isn't much of a transition, but I'm so glad to be in that part of the song that it doesn't matter much how they got there.  And fortunately they don't do exactly the same thing with the vocals from that point onwards.  Actually I think there's a gradual transition over the course of the album from multiple voices at the start to a voice that sounds more alone by the end of Death.  Probably not by accident.

 

I guess in the end, the best way to describe the album is that there are parts I really like and parts I don't like at all, and oftentimes both of those even happen within the same song.  But I also feel like a week wasn't quite enough for this.  It could still grow on me some more.

 

Favorite song is Continental Shift.  Yeah, that's their single (oh - Google tells me it literally is their single), and I'll be coming back to it.  

 

I can hear the Joy Division comparison best on Silhouettes.

 

For Death, I noticed it was 11 minutes long before I started listening to it, it was starting to hit a period of diminishing returns around 6 minutes, and then that part starts at 6:46 and given what I'd heard to that point, I was fully convinced they would just hammer away like that for the last 4 minutes.  But it picked back up.  I was happy about that.

[Control]

guys I graduate on Monday and my parents are visiting so I'm still behind and can't even comment on my own choice but I will totally do so soon and I'm glad that people seem to like Viet Cong.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

Okay! More people dropped out, but by god we're gonna keep going! This is the Oregon Trail! We're making it across that fucking river if it dysentaries us!

 

Thanks to JR for being ready early.

 

Week 6 (5/25-5/31)

In this spoiler tag is the giant fucking cover for

 

"Dedication" by After The Fall

[JRGoldman]

Just so everyone knows, this album is streaming on bandcamp. Just search on Google or something, you guys are good at internet.

[S.K.o.S.]

Huh.  I got my dinner out of the fridge, heated it up, and ate it, and in the time it took to do that, I listened to the entire album.

[JRGoldman]

haha, yeah, punk albums are brief. I should say a few things before I write my big post, I'll wait for a few others to wade in before I share my thoughts. One, I didn't expect to have to go this early so I sort of made a knee jerk pick. If people hadn't dropped out, I was almost assuredly going to pick the new Fall album that comes out on June 9th without hearing it at all so we could all go in blind. Two, I wanted to make sure that I picked something recent, and in all honesty I haven't heard a ton of new music that I have loved this year. I don't love this album either (although I don't dislike it, I think it's perhaps just...problematic?) but there is enough there to make it memorable to me, which is noteworthy in and of itself. I think what stands out is the complete earnestness of the whole thing. It's just so appallingly honest. There are many people who have written songs about the death of a friend more poignantly, or more poetically. I don't know of too many more that have written songs so evocative of that cursed raw nerve feeling that we have all experienced when someone we love dies young. 

[Randy]

My pick, which is next, will contrast yours in loudness and tempo.  But it is similarly about loss.

[Death From Above]

I'm afraid I am going to fall behind the next three weeks or so but I will get around to everyone's album when I am able.

[S.K.o.S.]

Okay, Dedication.  The opening 30 seconds or so, I was digging the guitar and thinking this was going to be pretty good, and then the singing starts and the music really takes a back seat from that point on.  I mean, it sounded like they can play alright, but I wasn't exactly focusing on it.

 

I was going to say something about the lyrics being so sincere as well, like JR did.  You pretty much have to acknowledge that.  No symbolism, nothing cryptic, and every song about death, so there are some difficult emotions being put right out there.  There were times when this sincerity came off as a little corny, but also times where it worked perfectly.  I think the best moment of the album was how they followed up Twenty Nine, with the "Close your eyes and go to sleep forever" line and really everything else in that song, and then straight into Ill Fate, singing about finding out someone has terminal cancer, and like for real, it's almost too much.  But it's also perfect, because I felt the same sort of gut punch that he was singing about feeling.

 

On first listen, I just unquestioningly accepted that all this was directly based on the singer's real life experiences, so the realism is a big plus.  Thinking about it a little more critically, I still feel it's probably based on reality, although I don't think the ten songs are about ten different people.

 

All in all, it's pretty impressive that they could make a whole album about death, where you feel the impact of that, and still have it be very positive overall.  You'd think an 18 minute album would be pretty slight - my experience with punk songs this short is like novelty "profanity for laughs" Stormtroopers of Death type stuff - but they do a whole lot in very little time.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

I'm gonna go ahead and follow Thumper's rule and just say I didn't like this.

[JRGoldman]

I'm gonna go ahead and follow Thumper's rule and just say I didn't like this.

 

haha, ouch! I guess I didn't expect people to love this album, but I think it's interesting that it inspires such vitriol. I, for one, would like you to elaborate. Since it will almost assuredly be funny and overwhelmingly negative, Jingus away my friend. 

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

You asked.

 

The fastest way to get me to hate whatever it is you're doing is to not have a reason for your instrument and tone choice other than "because." This is why most rock and metal vexes the hell out of me, because it's couched in a tradition the artists either never thought to question or wholeheartedly accepted. I can't fuck with that either way. Instrument choice is SO HUGE to music. The great composers and songwriters and even pop songwriters know that what instrument conveys just as much idea as title, or theme, or lyrics, or anything else. Referring back to two picks ago, everything that happens on that Jay Munly record needs those instruments because the setting being projected is rural and in small communities, which is evoked by smaller percussion and folk instrumentation. There is nothing that happens on After The Fall's record that indicates they needed to use overdriven electric guitars to establish their point, or that they needed to use punk rock structure. They just did. That's boring to me.

 

Also, the lyrical content. I get this is a conditional complaint, so I'll try to frame this in how I was listening to it, and not what they chose to talk about. When I was 14, my father passed away. I lost my religion the same year. I've had plenty of time to have Immense Power Freak-outs about death and absence, and time to analyse how it's played into who I am. The terms used to discuss these ideas on this record are all so surface level and immediate. This is what I dealt with in high school, and I'm not a nostalgic person, so it didn't get me there either. The most I'm capable of responding with is "yup." There's no nuance on the record that I haven't explored in my own life that I needed someone else to frame for me.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

Well! On the note of my negativity, here's the next album! 

Week 7 (6/01-6/07)



"Carrie & Lowell" by Sufjan Stevens

[Chaos]

I had a feeling we would be going with this album once Randy said he was doing another album about loss.

 

This might be my final excuse to pick it up.

[CrazyMax46]

Well shit. I finally got a Spotify subscription. Might as well join in.

[Control]

Playing catchup:

Munly and the Lupercalians: I've given this a couple of listens, and each time, when it kicks off, I'm all in: the concept, the sound, everything just works for me. But I can't maintain that enthusiasm throughout. I really think that this needs to be a sub-30 minute album, maybe 5-6 songs max. It doesn't help that the last song, "Wulf," would be the worst song I'd heard this year, if I hadn't listened to that Interrupters album. Still, I'll keep this one spinning for a bit.

 

Squarepusher: I went for a run listening to this, since I thought it would be good running music. I had to keep stopping myself from yelling "Mortal Kombat!" every once in a while. I ended up with my third fastest 5k run, so I guess it is pretty good music to run to. I was trying to think of the ideal situation for listening to this music: I mean, is this club music? Do people wear glow-in-the-dark body paint while tripping balls and dance to this? I just don't get it, but I was fine with it nonetheless.

[Control]

Cont'd

 

Viet Cong: Y'all have had more to say about this than I will. But this line from BL88 is tops:

Viet Cong's Death is the evil twin of Television's Marquee Moon track.

 

I actually have to think about that for a bit.

 

I've been listening to the Hardcore Devo demos, Devo's stripped-down, basement demos, and while I don't think that Viet Cong sounds like Devo, there's something of the lo-fi post-punk sound going on.

 

Anyway, what I like most about Viet Cong, and which I won't articulate very well, is that I think that many of their songs almost sound like different genres--a couple of you mentioned the tonal shifts, and not only do the songs shift internally, but the tone differs from track-to-track.  At the same time, there is something that is recognizably similar from track-to-track, so that it's not a mess but a cohesive whole.

 

That description doesn't really do justice to what I'm trying to say. In any event, I love the sound of the whole album. And now I'm going to track down Freak Heat Wave.

 

After the Fall: This is fine.

[Randy]

I know that it is cliche to say that an album contains a common thread and it is not just a collection of songs, Carrie & Lowell truly is that.  Sufjan Stevens tells the story that leads up to the passing of his mother and how he deals with it.  His response is mostly destructive:  alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity.

 

He loves her, but there were clearly issues they had in their relationship.  That might be why he never allowed himself a healthy grieving process.

 

Obviously the subject matter is a personal one, and the songs are very quiet.  It is mostly a sad album, but there are some beautiful songs on it.  The saddest one is "Fourth of July", in which he tells of the moment of her passing and an imagined conversation in the hospital room.

 

The final song is especially depressing.  Sufjan goes on a personal journey working through his grief.  As he realizes that the response to his mother's passing was destructive and he is finally in a good place, he is ready to accept her back into his life, but it is too late.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

'Fourth of July' is one of the saddest songs I've ever heard. When he sings "did you get enough love, my little dove, why do you cry? I'm sorry I left but it was for the best, though it never felt right" it gets me every time, and I want to go give my son a big hug.

[Control]

I'm not sure what to say about this Sufjan Stevens album. I both really like it and kinda wanna make fun of it and people who listen to it.

[Chaos]

I'm not sure what to say about this Sufjan Stevens album. I both really like it and kinda wanna make fun of it and people who listen to it.

 

I am excited to give it a listen over the weekend. I really love his earlier work. Specifically, Greetings From Michigan and Come On! Feel the Illinoise!

 

The latter is in consideration for my top 10 - 20 albums of the last decade.

[S.K.o.S.]

 

I'm not sure what to say about this Sufjan Stevens album. I both really like it and kinda wanna make fun of it and people who listen to it.

 

I am excited to give it a listen over the weekend. I really love his earlier work. Specifically, Greetings From Michigan and Come On! Feel the Illinoise!

 

The latter is in consideration for my top 10 - 20 albums of the last decade.

 

 

I've never actually heard anything else by him, but I'm thinking this album has got to be way different from those.

[Chaos]

 

 

I'm not sure what to say about this Sufjan Stevens album. I both really like it and kinda wanna make fun of it and people who listen to it.

 

I am excited to give it a listen over the weekend. I really love his earlier work. Specifically, Greetings From Michigan and Come On! Feel the Illinoise!

 

The latter is in consideration for my top 10 - 20 albums of the last decade.

 

 

I've never actually heard anything else by him, but I'm thinking this album has got to be way different from those.

 

 

I've never given either a full listen, but Age of Adz and the EP he released in preparation for that, All Delighted People, were pretty big departures if I recall.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

What I've come to realize after listening to this is that for as interesting of a character that he is, I've never really liked Sufjan Stevens' music that much. He has a few songs I really enjoy (mainly Enchanting Ghost and All Delighted People), but it is -so hard- for me to sit through his albums. His approach to melody is somehow both ornate and too simple for me to really enjoy. This is especially true on this album, where the songs are all one or two melodic phrases repeated ad nauseum. Although I guess that's true of most folk. I don't know. I respect the work put in, because being pretty is WAY harder than being loud and mean and ugly. I just don't get anything out of listening to it.

[S.K.o.S.]

This sounded like Simon & Garfunkel, especially the title track.  If I had it on in the background while doing something else I probably would've thought it was just him and a guitar for the whole thing.  But there's more to be gained by listening to it closely.  There's some accompaniment that creeps in occasionally that I barely even noticed, and the lyrics often go against the tone.  The Only Thing is an angry song, even though it doesn't sound angry.

 

The way things are laid out, it's like he's not still fully at peace with what happened, you know?  I feel like it should be more gradual to be healthy.  Like third last song there'd be some sort of epiphany that he has to stop the destructive behavior, second last song he's accepting things, last song he's accepted it.  But what happens is second last song he's doing drugs and fucking, last song he's kind of accepted it but he's still unhappy.

 

I like how they end the album musically, with the song cutting off and then unexpectedly continuing.  Captain Obvious told me it represents how he has to continue on after the end of his mother's life.