Rust Is Just Right is not a very large operation, so we may overlook some albums when they are first released. However, when we eventually catch up and listen to some of these records, we are not going to let the fact that we are ten months behind stop us from writing a review. The point of all this introductory nonsense is to explain why we are reviewing the debut album from Ought in February of 2015 even though it was released in April of 2014, but the only necessary reason should be that More Than Any Other Day is a fantastic rock record that electrifies the listener with both its furious energy and its thought-provoking experimentalism.
The quickest description that I could use to describe Ought’s sound is “Alec Ounsworth fronting a Fugazi-inspired punk band”, but as you should expect, relying on the reductionist rock-crit namedrop cliche does not paint a full picture. Tim Beeler’s vocals do mostly recall Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, but that doesn’t cover the spectrum of emotions and contortions that his voice undergoes to match the twists and turns of the music. For instance, Beeler’s use of dynamics in songs like “Clarity!” bring to mind the theatrics of the Violent Femmes, and that dramatic touch helps create a memorable, slow-burning epic. He may not have the the most extensive vocal range, but his speak-sing style is effectively used in a song like “Around Again”, as when the band stops and Beeler asks “Why is it you can’t stare into the sun but you can stick your head into a bucket of water and breathe in deep?”
Musically speaking, Ought blurs the line between punk and post-punk, and in the process does an excellent job of making the lives of critics that much more difficult–in other words, it is not as easy to define the distinction as it is with, say, Viet Cong. Ought often does engage in the full-fledged fury of a more traditional punk band, but they still allow room for experimental sonic elements that makes it hard to pin down to a single genre. Consider the catchy and frenetic “The Weather Song”, which veers from a jittery verse into frenzied finish that is reminiscent of Wolf Parade (especially with the unusual presence of keyboards), as well as “Forgiveness”, whose use of a violin as a drone adds in a touch of the Velvet Underground to the band’s sound. I am unsure what is more impressive: the fact that from song to song, it is almost impossible to pin down where Ought will go next, yet the band switches gears in a way that doesn’t give the listener whiplash, or the fact that despite the fact one can spot all these diverse influences rather easily, the band organically incorporates these elements into their sound so well that one cannot pin the “copycat” label on them.
Though only eight songs long, More Than Any Other Day is a dense but rewarding album that reveals itself on multiple listens. Initially, the most striking element of “Today, More Than Any Other Day” is probably its dramatic tempo and stylistic shifts. Then you may notice the odd lines of “I am excited to go grocery shopping. And today, more than any other day, I am prepared to make the decision between 2% and whole milk” that is referenced in many reviews, but you go back and see that it’s not merely a non sequitur but in fact a riff on the previous line that “I am excited to feel the Milk of Human Kindness”, either an allusion to Macbeth or the Caribou album, and now you have to reconsider how all these elements fit together. The good news is that the album is so great that it is worth the extra effort.
Father John Misty’s debut album Fear Fun was a delightful surprise–few expected that a solo album from the former drummer of Fleet Foxes would be such a musical revelation. The best case scenario was that Fear Fun would be a pleasant diversion, but Joshua Tillman’s adopted persona of a modern-day hipster-shaman created folk rock tunes that have held up remarkably well over the years. Fast-forward three years, and while we are still waiting to hear anything new from Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty has returned with a stellar new album that will force people to stop name-dropping his former outfit.
I Love You, Honeybear is a stunningly gorgeous album, one that expands the scope of its predecessor with lush strings and intricate arrangements, but also one that delights in intimate personal details. Father John Misty has always had a deft touch with his lyrics, often evoking a wry smile or two, but lines like “She says, ‘Like, literally music is the air [she] breathe[s],’ and the malaprops make me wanna fucking scream…I wonder if she even knows what that word means; well it’s ‘literally’ not that” from “The Night Josh Tillman Came To Our Apt.” elicit an actual laugh every time its played. Tillman’s recent marriage is a defining influence on the album, but Tillman is careful to balance any sweetness with just the right amount of cynicism; a great example comes from the closing lines of “Holy Shit”: “Maybe love is just an economy based on resource scarcity–but what I fail to see is what that’s got to do with you and me.”
At times, it seems that the music could veer dangerously close to the emptiness of late 70’s AM Radio/yacht-rock (or perhaps worse, playing up the conventions of the genre with too much irony), but Father John Misty employs a nimble hand throughout the album, and simply writes melodies that are too good to be associated with such vapidness. Honeybear‘s laid-back ballads are enhanced by extravagant string arrangements that add both depth and ornamentation, and songs like the relaxed swing of “Nothing Good Ever Happens at the Goddamn Thirsty Crow” and the achingly beautiful “Chateau Lobby #4 (In C for Two Virgins)” are enhanced by the expert addition of wind and horn melodies. It is difficult to select any standout songs from this consistently great album, but the euphoric triumph of “Chateau Lobby #4” is one that will be easily remembered.
The album is mainly made up of mid-tempo numbers, but the good news is that I Love You, Honeybear never really drags. The one real rocker (and a soon-to-be favorite of the live set), “The Ideal Husband”, appears two-thirds of the way through and gives the musicians a chance to really thrash about on a fun blues stomp, but otherwise things are generally calm. A trio of ballads follows, beginning with the sarcastic ode “Bored in the USA” that perfectly sums up the sentiment of a generation coping with the readjusted education/benefits equation, and ending with the sweet lullaby “I Went to the Store One Day” which recounts the circumstances that led to the romance that inspired the album. If only all great outcomes could result from a simple line like “I’ve seen you around–what’s your name?”
Note: The CD version of the album comes with a booklet entitled Exercises for Listening. I highly recommend that you read these directions; obey them at your peril.
Viet Cong’s self-title debut is one of those records that I find easier to admire than to truly enjoy. Though Viet Cong is enjoying a serious amount of critical buzz (its Metacritic rating currently sits at 82 with only a typical half-hearted shrug of a review from Rolling Stone dragging down its grade), I find it highly unlikely that the band’s noisy take on early-80’s post-punk will break through to a mass audience in any big way. At times Viet Cong is a challenging and confrontational album, with the band seemingly taking a defiant approach by avoiding by thismuch a more approachable melody whenever possible. It’s an album that defies easy conventions, but one that is rewarding with repeated listens; the problem is gaining the will to get to that point.
The album is heavily influenced by post-punk like early Joy Division or Wire with its insistent drumming, melodic bass counterpoint, and off-kilter guitars, but Viet Cong filters these elements through a sheen of Sonic Youth-like noise and the lo-fi experimentation of their disciples. Whereas a lot of those classic records would employ a common verse-chorus structure, most of the songs on Viet Cong veer through multiple unrelated ideas, with songs stopping on a dime and making a sudden left turn into previously unforeseen musical territory. For example, a song like “March of Progress” begins with an ambient sonic experiment like you would find on a No Agerecord, abruptly shifts into an eastern-tinged drone, then concludes by suddenly morphing into a dance-y 4/4 rave-up; none of this makes sense on paper, and the unfamiliar listener will assume that he/she just listened to three separate songs, but Viet Cong finds a connective tissue between the differing styles.
The band’s relentless desire to experiment doesn’t always pay off, but when it does, it does so in a big way. The first half of Viet Cong can be a struggle to listen to, with slogs like “Bunker Buster” and “Pointless Experience” sounding like homework for a lesson on post-punk: OK, here’s the guitar accenting the off-beats, there’s the drums chugging along, and oh yeah here’s some distant, ethereal haunting vocals overlooking the entire enterprise. Sure, there are individual moments within each song that are worth noting, but they are enveloped by such dour surroundings that they can be difficult to appreciate. If you thought Interpol was too brooding for your tastes, then you’re in trouble.
However, the second half of Viet Cong is a monster that should have you overlooking any potential misgivings from the first half. “Continental Shelf” manages to twist a beach-influenced Surfer Blood–type riff into something more ominous and foreboding, and it pays off in spades. Bassist Matt Flegel’s vocals alternate between a desperate wail in the mold of a Paul Banks to a more restrained version of Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, Moonface, etc.) in his best performance on the album that shows the band’s exciting potential. “Silhouettes” is a more frenetic number that amps up the paranoia and makes excellent use of the band’s heavy dose of reverb, the perfect soundtrack for an apocalyptic disco party.
Viet Cong concludes with the eleven-minute epic “Death” and features a stellar drumming performance by Mike Wallace, who expertly deploys an attacking snare riff to build on the unstable mood established by “Silhouettes” before the entire song collapses in a noise-freakout. That is, the song seemingly collapses–after a false ending, the band seamlessly transitions back into a more furious version of the original song, constantly increasing the speed and tension. It’s a performance that will leave you figuratively gasping for air, though I imagine in concert the reaction may be more literal.
If Viet Cong can build on the strengths shown on the second half of their debut, then they have a very bright future ahead of them. I am unsure whether Viet Cong will appeal to anyone outside of post-punk enthusiasts, but for those who appreciate the genre they should enjoy their original spin on its conventions. At the very least, we should all be able to enjoy the pure unfiltered fury of a song like “Death”.
The Decemberists have returned from the longest absence of their career with an album that is the perfect encapsulation of their evolution to this point. What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World splits the difference of the sprawling, proggy The Hazards of Love and the return-to-our-roots folk-rock of The King Is Dead, but does not necessarily feel like a compromise between the two versions of the band. The combination results in an album that is filled with wonderful, catchy moments that are meticulously crafted and brilliantly arranged, making full use of the band’s instrumental prowess in creating gorgeous, digestible songs. In other words, no overlong multi-part epics, but no stripped-down basics either.
Many critics have emphasized the lyrics in their reviews, which is an understandable approach considering the band’s hyper-literate reputation were what brought fans on board in the first place. On What a Terrible World, the focus is less on 18th century peasant life or swashbuckling sailors, trading in allegory and metaphor for more direct commentary on personal topics like love and growing up, a noticeable shift in the band’s lyrical technique. This is why when Colin Meloy seemingly makes a song into meta-commentary as he does with the opener “The Singer Addresses His Audience”, the critics focus on lines about selling out for Axe commercials, instead of remarking on the fantastic build into the song’s climax, anchored by a thundering performance by John Moen. However, it is the band’s less-recognized musical prowess that carries the album and deserves more attention, with each member making vital contributions on a multitude of instruments.
Though the band doesn’t indulge in individual songs that are the kind of multi-genre exercises that characterized albums like The Crane Wife, they do stretch out over the course of the album. Sometimes the explorations misfire, as in the accordion swamp-stomp of “Anti-Summersong” that unfortunately brings back nightmares of that godawful Kongos song from last summer.* Thankfully, those moments are rare, and the listener can enjoy instead when The Decemberists recall the gothic Americana of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Howl era with songs like “Carolina Low”, or revel in the bright horns of the rousing “Cavalry Captain” that are reminiscent of Guster. Though these deviations are welcome, it’s when the band goes back to their wheelhouse of rousing folk-rock that the band truly shines, as they do on their first single–“Make You Better” may not only be the album’s highlight, but once the song hits that climax after the guitar solo, it may possibly the best moment of their career.
What a Terrible World, What A Beautiful World is a bit too long at fifty-three minutes, sagging at around the three-quarters mark, though considering their previous absence it is understandable that the band felt that they had to leave in as much material as possible. Despite the lull, the album still finishes with a flourish due to the touching “12/17/12” and the uplifting “A Beginning Song”, leaving the listener far from disappointed after that slight setback. What a Terrible World represents some of the best of The Decemberist’s late-era work–they have combined the instrumental adventurousness of The Hazards of Love while learning to rein in its potential excesses by keeping a song-based focus as they did on The King Is Dead. It may not seem like a risky move, but it was an incredibly tricky maneuver and The Decemberists pulled it off beautifully.
*It’s a damn shame that this is my first instinct to reference, considering I grew up in an area where zydeco was a significant part of the culture.
Bloc Party’s reputation was built on the strength of its masterful debut Silent Alarm, which remains one of the greatest albums of the indie rock mini-boom at the beginning of the century. They channeled a ferocious energy through a combination of spiky, angular guitars and lyrics that zeroed in on battles both external and internal, creating a perfect mix of hard-edged rockers and introspective ballads. Silent Alarm was both a critical and commercial success, and remains the most beloved album for many of its fans; any follow-up was bound to be met with some resistance, and indeed reception to A Weekend In The City was widely split. There were many critics that saw Weekend as the beginning of the end of Bloc Party, but there was also a small passionate contingent that has for years fought against this perception, and who instead insist that it’s a classic that is in many ways equal (or even superior) to Silent Alarm. Guess where Rust Is Just Right falls in this argument.
In many ways, A Weekend In The City was a huge gamble on the part of Bloc Party, and represented a bold change in musical direction. The strengths of their debut lay in their innovative interpretation of early-80’s post-punk guitars from bands like Gang of Four as well as the brilliant and manic drumming of Matt Tong. The guitar hooks of a single like “Helicopter” drew in the average listener, but it was the relentless attack of Tong’s drums in “Like Eating Glass” that mesmerized listeners and created fans. The band chose to de-emphasize these aspects of their sound in Weekend, opting instead for more electronic instrumentation and building more songs around Kele Okereke’s delicate (but potentially divisive) vocals. It’s understandable that many fans were turned off by this decision, but even if they were turned off by this general approach, the band’s harshest critics would have to agree that the moments when Bloc Party veered into its more “classic” sound are some of the band’s best work, like the furious opener “Song For Clay (Disappear Here)” and the buoyant “Waiting For The 7:18”.
A chief complaint of many detractors of Weekend was the unconventional sequencing of the album’s tracks. Silent Alarm had its fair share of slow songs and ballads, but their cumulative effect was muted because they were paired throughout with the more energetic tracks, allowing the album to avoid any lulls. With Weekend, the band packs the rockers at the beginning, adding a few tracks that alternated moods before piling the introspective sad songs for the last third, which created the sense for many that the album peaked too early and dragged towards the end. However, the critics of the track order fail to consider the thematic concept of the album as a whole, that in this case the title A Weekend In The City is more than a mere placeholder–it’s a declaration of narrative intent. The album does an excellent job of mirroring the varying moods as one experiences the weekend: the initial thrills of getting off work on Friday and partying into the night, the attempts to keep the energy up with varying degrees of success on Saturday, and finally the letdown and regret of Sunday. It’s a brilliant musical representation of a common shared experience, though must of us could only wish to feel an epiphany like the thrilling climax of “SRXT”.
By viewing the album as a running narrative of a weekend, the listener can dig out subtle nuances and derive interesting new meanings by placing songs in context, but each song is still able to stand on its own without losing any significance. Throughout the running storyline of “the weekend”, Bloc Party interweaves separate statements about drugs and partying (“Song For Clay”, “The Prayer”), racism and terrorism (“Hunting For Witches”), as well as regret and depression (“Sunday”, “SRXT”). Instead of invoking abstract expressions like in Silent Alarm, Kele splices in specific references in his lyrics this time around, giving a personal touch to each of these songs. Some people may be taken out of the moment by hearing an odd mention, but others prefer having a specific grounding point; for instance, I’ll always remember the line “I’d pick and eat more wild blackberries” because it conveys a more personal memory and sentiment, even if it appears a bit goofy on its face.
A Weekend In The City works not only as a cohesive whole, but as an excellent collection of songs. The moments when the band plays to its strengths are thrilling (like the end to “Waiting For The 7:18”), and when Bloc Party challenges itself to stretch beyond its comfort zone, it is able to rise to the challenge (“On”, “Sunday”). Instead of viewing the album as the beginning of its decline, it should instead be seen as an example of a band maturing and growing musically. Over the years, the reputation of Weekend hasn’t really improved, as the band has moved further in the direction of dance music and electronic influences, much to the dismay of many of its fans. However, it’s an album that’s held up surprisingly well over the years and is well worth revisiting, if you need to revise your original opinion.
Though this is difficult to hear, every year we get more evidence that it may be a good idea to break up your band for a decade, even if they are at their creative peak. Last year, Death From Above 1979 came back and wowed us with the stellar The Physical World; the year before that saw the surprisingly wonderful return of My Bloody Valentine; and then there is Dinosaur Jr., who have released three excellent albums after the reunion of their original lineup after nearly twenty years apart. Sleater-Kinney has pulled off the same trick with the excellent No Cities To Love, a furious and catchy album that is both an artistic step forward as well as a classic example of the trademark S-K sound.
The frenetic “Price Tag” kicks off the album, pairing an off-kilter looping Sleater-Kinney riff typical of their early years with ferociously political lyrics; not since the heyday of Rage Against The Machine have we heard a song that targets economic inequity and middle-class complacence. “Fangless” follows and throws a bit of a curveball with its mixture of funk rhythms and new-wave guitars, as well as featuring a prominent bass counterpart that was previously a rarity in light of S-K’s usual twin-guitar attack. The track is indicative of the kind of musical adventurousness found throughout No Cities To Love as well as what makes the album so much fun.
No Cities To Love features some of the best hooks of Sleater-Kinney’s career, including the peppy title track and the bouncy “Hey Darling”; the descending chorus melody in the latter immediately brings to mind something Ted Leo and the Pharmacists would have concocted circa Hearts of Oak. “A New Wave” has some fun with the bass riff from Nirvana’s “Love Buzz” before shifting into a sing-song chorus that makes perfect use of the unique vocal harmonies of Brownstein and Tucker.
Sleater-Kinney has been a band that has long been beloved by critics and pushed by their most passionate fans asall-time greats, but rarely have I ever felt that this type of hype was fully justified. I’ve certainly have enjoyed their albums over the years (after overcoming an initial reluctance due to their unconventional vocals) and recognize the impact that the group has had musically and culturally over the years (they have been arguably as far-reaching in their influence as Pavement in the past couple of decades), yet never had them break into my regular rotation nor would put them in that upper echelon of groups. However, even considering Sleater-Kinney’s excellent discography as a whole, No Cities To Love is a cut above, and will certainly invite not only repeated listens but end-of-the-year list consideration. Not bad for a January album.
In some ways, Built to Spill is an odd choice to be a part of a festival put on by a beer company. A Built to Spill show is not intended for the casual music fan who’s out on the town looking for a fun night out with the music as mere background to other items on the agenda. The band’s focus is not on spectacle, but on recreating dense, complex works of Guitar As Art for a devoted and appreciative audience in as professional a manner as possible. Even fans can find themselves lost as the group delves deep into an extensive catalog of originals and various covers. In other words, there would be no shilling for corporate sponsors, or mentions of alcoholic beverages; Doug Martsch would punctuate a song with a simple “Thanks”.
Though technically a part of the Project Pabst festivities, it is best to think of Saturday night’s show as a stand-alone gig–the chance to see one of the great indie rock bands for over two decades in a locale that while not home, is close to it, for the low price of only $25. As weekend entertainment options go, it was probably the best bang you could get for your buck, and that’s before taking into account the quality of the actual performance. With a setlist that danced all around their extensive career and a lineup in which the new parts are now seemingly fully assimilated, the band ended up performing their finest show that I’ve seen in years.
Doug Martsch and co. remembering to carry the zero
It’s not a bad idea to start things off with one of the greatest album openers of all-time, and the band obliged with a furious rendition of You In Reverse‘s epic “Goin’ Against Your Mind” in all its solo-filled glory. The band then dipped into the early years with two cuts from There’s Nothing Wrong With Love, “In the Morning” and “Stab”. A riveting performance of “Liar” followed, complete with the trademark Doug Martsch head-swivel, as well as a rousing version of “Sidewalk” which got the crowd bouncing.
The middle of the set featured my first encounter with “They Got Away”, a reggae-inspired song that the band had released a few years back on a single that I didn’t even know existed; I had been anticipating new material as the group had been working on a follow-up to There Is No Enemy for some time, but instead I had to settle for a song that ended up being just “new-to-me”. Speaking of that album, a personal highlight was the gorgeous ballad “Life’s a Dream”, whose climax really sizzled live. I’m still hoping to catch a live performance of the devastating “Things Fall Apart”, though.
Built to Spill jamming with the opener’s cover of “Psycho Killer”
The last time I caught Built to Spill it was at an intimate show at the Doug Fir where the group was incorporating a new drummer and bass player. The guitarists were all predictably great, but the rhythm section was hesitant and looked rather bored; part of this could be attributed to a setlist that consisted of seemingly easier songs so as to gradually incorporate the new members. However, there was no such caution with the material at Saturday’s show, and the two new guys sounded as if they had been a part of the group for years.
The show ended with slow-building classics “I Would Hurt A Fly” and “Time Trap”, and though we were warned the latter would be the last song of the evening, we were thrilled when it unexpectedly merged into old favorite “Car”. It had been nearly a decade since I saw that song live, and goddamn did it feel good to hear it again. That said, hopefully it won’t be another decade before I see it again.
One of our primary goals here at Rust Is Just Right is to provide an alternative to a lot of the dismissive snark that is the hallmark of a lot of contemporary music criticism these days. We believe that in a world that’s overflowing with great music, it’s better to analyze and promote what’s worth listening to instead of attempting to tear down what’s already popular. Sure, it’s easy to succumb to the temptation of writing something bitingly clever about a band that we don’t like, but it’s not really going to accomplish all that much. Besides, it’s not our place to decry other people’s tastes. If you enjoy something, we’re in no place to tell you why you’re wrong–life is simply too short and awful to take away any such joy like that.
Given those parameters, this editorial may seem to run counter to that mission. Yes, we are going to slag on Arcade Fire, but that’s not the main purpose of this piece. No, our qualms are with the breathless adulation and coverage that the band receives on an infuriatingly and consistent basis, and how Arcade Fire has somehow in the past decade became shorthand for what’s “good” in “indie rock”. This unabashed love of the band has frustratingly led to the ridiculous need that many publications and writers to shoehorn a mention of “Arcade Fire” in pieces that are completely irrelevant to the group.
First, we’ll lay all our cards on the table and explain why we don’t like the band in the first place. Well…Eels wrote a superior album about coping with the deaths of close family members, Pavement did a much better job of writing seemingly-tuneless melodies, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor along with Broken Social Scene did a far better job of simply being a collective of Canadian musicians. Hell, even the cover of Funeral is infuriating, since it comes off as a rip-off of the art associated with Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea–shit, it even has the same goddamn font that NMH used. The art just screams “WE REALLY LIKE NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL AND WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT WE’RE COOL LIKE THAT!” If you want more substantial criticism (beyond this standard rock-critic trope of accusing a group of being derivative of all these other influences), it boils down to the fact that their music is boring, they can’t sing, and have never written an insightful lyric. They wrote a two-chord song, and they couldn’t figure out how to do it in a key that was in the range of their singer–LCD Soundsystem managed to do that, and came up with one of the greatest songs of the decade despite James Murphy’s limited vocal abilities. This is a band that ruins their one decent moment, the song “Wake Up”, with an abrupt and inexplicable shift into fucking “Walking On Sunshine”.
Perhaps my frustration with the band can best be explained by their presence in the film “Her”. It’s an absolutely amazing film and further cements in my mind that Spike Jonze is a true genius, and I was glad that he won an Oscar for his work. However, I had significant issues with the score. There was one key scene where the OS “Samantha” composes her own music, and we in the audience here it played back. It’s twinkly piano music that sounds pleasant on the surface, even if it has no real melodic ideas, and sounds like something an entity with limited knowledge of songwriting would create. Which seems to fit the idea of a computer attempting a human behavior and approximating that behavior except…it was frustratingly obvious that the piano was played by a human, since the rhythms were wildly imprecise and fingers were lingering too long on certain notes and making the notes stick together and therefore ruining the illusion. That’s Arcade Fire in a nutshell: humans attempting to mimic machines which are trying to pass off as humans, and failing miserably.
For the most part, it hasn’t been an issue and aside from their presence in an otherwise magnificent film, I’ve been able to avoid Arcade Fire rather easily. It doesn’t take much to avoid clicking links like “Watch Arcade Fire’s 25 Best ‘Reflektor’ Tour Cover Songs”, even if those links appear everywhere and on multiple sites. No, the true problem is when the band makes a random appearance in an article that has absolutely nothing to do with them, as illustrated in this review. Pitchfork’s review of M83’s re-release of their first three albums marked the moment when we officially reached Peak Music Critic Insufferability, as the reviewer attempted to describe M83’s style with this statement: “Arcade Fire are perhaps a better touchpoint for their overall approach: lead with emotions telegraphed big and wide enough to fill a stadium, and let the guitars and synthesizers fall into place around them.”
Now, let that sink in for a second. Not only is it ridiculous to compare the music of the two bands (since no one who has ever listened to both bands would find a connection beyond “these are two acts that create sounds”–just listen to that video above and explain how it resembles Arcade Fire in any fashion), note that the connection between the two seems to be…that the two groups are both emotive. This assertion that somehow Arcade Fire was the first group to emphasize emotion in some capacity in their music is completely insane (especially in an era where “emo” was huge) and demonstrates the myopia that afflicts a generation of rock critics in which in order to convey that a musician is “serious” that it must be compared to this one band. To further underscore how clumsily the point is made in the review, note that the comparison to Arcade Fire is immediately dropped and no further mention is made in the rest of the review.
However, the most ridiculous aspect of the comparison is just simple chronology. M83’s first two albums were released before Funeral, while their third was released a couple of months after. Unless those crazy Canadians can bend the rules of time and space, it can be definitively stated that they had absolutely no effect on the French electronic duo. If you’re dead-set on making some sort of comparison, perhaps another article can be written about how M83 influenced Arcade Fire, but why bother. I mean, this is a great song that displays subtlety and mastery of melody–something that is difficult to find in an Arcade Fire song.
That’s not the only irrelevant mention of Arcade Fire I encountered this month–in a review of Death From Above 1979’s new album, I learned that apparently we started measuring time in terms of Arcade Fire album releases in the past decade. To be fair, that isn’t the worst problem with that ridiculous review (which includes gems like finding out that Wolfmother was apparently a dance-punk band), but it once again points to the annoying habit that many rock critics employ of needlessly dropping references to Arcade Fire. DFA1979 are as bad a comparison as M83 in terms of music, but why the hell should that matter?
These are all symptoms of the general problem of giving Arcade Fire way too much credit than they deserve. In this feature, we see the band get praise for…incorporating “whoas” in a song, as if having an instrumental swell accompanied by a wordless chorus was a fucking revolutionary act (just one year later, we would see a much better example of this technique from My Morning Jacket). Arcade Fire somehow also gets credit for “having an auxiliary floor-tom for intermittent bashing” when Radiohead had a hit the previous year doing exactly that (and to great effect). Even the most diehard Arcade Fire fan has to admit that Radiohead is a much more influential band. Besides, has this been a real trend? Sure, White Rabbits used it to great effect on “Percussion Gun” and it helped get people to listen to their fantastic album It’s Frightening, but for fuck’s sake, it isn’t worth tricking me into clicking a link for a goddamn Imagine Dragons video. More than anything, it just seemed like an excuse for this poor excuse for a Canadian collective to employ extra people to play random percussion, seemingly ripping off Slipknot of all bands (hey, I knew I forgot another random influence of Arcade Fire).
Arcade Fire fans, I mean you no harm. But please, if you end up working as music critics, please refrain from constantly mentioning your favorite band. It reflects poorly on all of us.
With the release of Interpol’s fifth album El Pintor yesterday, now is a great time to take a look back and examine the career of the band. Today we’ll analyze their brilliant debut, Turn on the Bright Lights, and tomorrow we’ll see how Interpol’s career developed in the wake of the success of that album.
Few albums have personally affected me as much as Interpol’s debut. When I first listened to the record back in high school, it helped introduce me to whole new worlds of music, providing the gateway to both modern indie bands and to classic post-punk bands from the past (though it would be many years before I truly comprehended what the term “post-punk” meant). It became one of those albums I would spin over and over again, be it as a disc pumping through my car stereo, an iTunes playlist played through dorm room speakers, or an iPod selection performed through my headphones. Over the years, there was one particular situation that would always inspire me to listen to Turn on the Bright Lights, and that was in my frequent airplane trips from coast-to-coast as I shuttled between college/law school and back home. It didn’t matter which was the destination; either way, the album allowed me to both confront and relax away the mixture of emotions that were a result of the trip.
So you should consider my claim that Turn on the Bright Lights is the greatest album released since the turn of the new century with this personal backstory in mind. Simply put, I believe that this album is an example of each individual member playing his part and fulfilling his role perfectly. Daniel Kessler’s beautiful and unique guitar style is the first thing that you notice; his use of single-note melody runs as well as a dynamic array of unusual two and three-note chords (as well as his crystalline tone) helped set Kessler’s guitarwork apart from his contemporaries, and showed how an alternative approach to the instrument can work (inspiring critics to deem his guitar lines as “angular”, a nonsensical description if-you-think-about-it that has nevertheless prevailed over the past decade in comparing guitarists influenced by Kessler, much like how “jangly” became ubiquitous with the rise of R.E.M.). The guitar doesn’t have to be omnipresent for it to still have an impact, and it can still have a massive effect even when it’s used to deploy bits of color to a song. Kessler is helped as well by Paul Banks’s wonderful work on second guitar, which doesn’t rely on playing mere stock chords or basic rhythms but instead provides a melodic counterpoint in weaving melodies around Kessler’s runs (often creating intriguing, rarely-heard chords) or complex rhythmic interplay that help propel the songs in new directions. Of course, you can’t talk about the genius of early Interpol without discussing Carlos D’s mesmerizing bass, which often provided key melodies to the songs and gave musicians everywhere a lesson in how to provide rhythmic support without relying on basic and repetitive patterns. But the real hero may be Sam Fogarino’s drums, and it may take several listens to realize the subtle tricky patterns that he employs without coming off like a showoff that are nevertheless integral to keeping the songs fresh, as well as his ability to provide just the right accents to punctuate all the key moments of the album.
In addition to their fantastic individual musicianship, there are two things that the band does very well that are revealed after multiple listens. The first is that Interpol does a brilliant job of subtly tweaking repeated phrases, both musical and lyrical, a technique that often provides the effect of casting both in a new light. It helps keep the listener on his or her toes by challenging expectations, and also provides an incentive to engage in repeated listens, so as to uncover new musical “tricks”. Interpol are also compositional experts, rarely relying on a basic verse-chorus-bridge formula; not only do they employ the tweaks mentioned before, but they often create dynamic bridges that lead to amazing outros, taking the song in unexpected and rewarding directions.
Before going any further, let’s just address the Joy Division comparisons for a second. The comparison between the two bands is valid, but to argue that Interpol is merely aping or ripping off Joy Division can only be the result of a superficial listening of the two. There are similarities, namely the prominence of the bass and the way that it often provides melodies (especially in the upper-register), the way that the guitar is often used to provide color and as a support instead of the point of emphasis, and the disaffected baritone vocals shared by Ian Curtis and Paul Banks. However, saying that the two are the same fails to take into account that Joy Division’s rhythmic approach was more straight-ahead and based on motorik styles (with Peter Hook’s bass in “Dead Souls” being a notable exception), while Interpol used “funkier” rhythms and switched styles more easily. As for the vocal comparisons, this fails to take into account how Paul would often explore the outer limits of his range, or attempt to convey various emotions more often than the flat, affectless style that was the trademark of Ian Curtis. The two bands are also unfairly tagged as “depressing” music, though this is due to some extent to the way that they present themselves. I think it’s fairer to say that both are serious about their craft, which comes out in their songs, and deliberate in their intentions; even if the themes may edge into darker territory, that is not the same thing as saying they’re both depressing. Interpol can often tread in the realm of the melancholic and gloomy, but after a few listens it’s easier to see both the hope and the humor in their lyrics and music. It’s not “mope-rock” to say the least. However, if you’re a reviewer still stuck on comparing the two bands, John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats once provided a helpful list of other things to which you can compare Interpol.
With these general points in mind, I’d like to provide some personal insights on a track-by-track basis. Hopefully they help inspire you to listen to the album and discover insights of your own.
The album begins with the delicate ballad “Untitled”, starting with a gorgeous, gauzy guitar playing a delicately descending figure. After repeating this pattern four times with a gradual crescendo, the drums kick in with a memorable cymbal pickup, followed by Carlos D’s powerful bass. This actually provides the dominant melody of the song, giving a prelude to Paul Banks’s vocal line. While the song essentially amounts to one line, with each repetition Banks adds a couple of words to the phrase that subtly changes the tenor of the lines, it never feels incomplete (as the title may suggest). After a gorgeous buildup featuring some guitar flourishes, the song ends with each instrument gradually dropping out. But the part that I always captivates me is the bass, which switches from the ambling, rolling figure to a deliberate and decisive conclusion. The effect of the quarter note bum-bum-buuuuuuum line is both ominous and chilling, especially as the third note lingers and you can hear the overtones rattling around your speakers.
“Obstacle 1” is the song that first made me fall in love with TOTBL, and it was unlike anything else I had heard before. Once again, the bass takes center stage in this song, as Carlos plays one of the most innovative bass parts ever recorded. He switches between delicate figures played on the upper register to switching between alternate rhythmic figures in the verse, to adding certain flourishes with his glissandos that slide up the neck before stopping without warning. Kessler’s guitar sounds like a distant alarm, echoing Television’s “Marquee Moon”, before interacting in a subtle interplay with Banks’s rhythm guitar. And then everything slides into place for that driving chorus, featuring the memorable line “as you go stabbing yourself in the neck.” The violence of the line is never really explain, but it somehow still makes sense. It should be noted that Paul makes a subtle switch between the two choruses, singing “It’s different now that I’m poor and aging, I’ll never see this face again” the first time, and replacing “face” with “place” the second time. In the context of the song, which is seemingly about the dissolution of a relationship, this switch shifts the context from the personal interaction between the partners to the setting.
This all sets up the brilliant bridge, featuring some of Sam’s most furious drumming as he shuffles around the entirety of his drumkit, providing the perfect foundation as Banks struggles with the reasons that the relationship has ended. Many critics like to make fun of the line “her stories are boring and stuff”, but this is merely an example how in many songs the narrator in many Interpol songs are either unreliable are unsympathetic; this line is an example of the narrator grasping at straws to end things, which is made clear with the very next line that “she’s always calling my bluff.” The mood then immediately shifts to one of mourning, as he laments the “weights” that she put in his heart, which is contradicted by the consistently ascending guitar part.
“NYC” is a devastatingly gorgeous ballad filled with memorable imagery; the line “the subway is a porno, the pavements they are a mess” is one of the most memorable of the decade, and really captures the grime in the city in more ways than one (it even takes on a whole new meaning when you think of the implication of the idea that the second phrase is a direct result of the first). For me, though, the opening lines are what stick with me: “I had seven faces, thought I knew which one to wear; I’m sick of spending these lonely nights training myself not to care.” It is the single most accurate depiction of depression I’ve ever heard, right down to the selection of “seven faces”, since each day of the week means a different role to play according to social norms.
But it’s not all doom-and-gloom, echoing a mistake that many detractors make when describing the band. Because the band takes that pain and decides to use that to propel themselves–first encouraged by the backing vocals “gotta be some more change in my life”, this builds into a personal call for action as Paul sings “it’s up to me now, turn on the bright lights” as Dan’s guitar elevates to the heavens with a majestic termolo-picked solo guitar line. But perhaps the song’s highest moment is when Sam’s drums emphasizes each quarter note before the last chorus of “New York cares”, as if you can reach through and feel the band sense each of those words.
The track “PDA” is how many people first heard the band, and in many ways this makes it easy to understand why all the music critics insisted on comparing the band to Joy Division in every single review. It’s one of the most straight-forward songs on the album, with a momentum built on its forward-leaning eighth-note drive, and is marked by Paul’s nearly affect-less singing, which makes those connections that critics drew to Ian Curtis pretty clear. One thing I enjoy hearing is Sam switching drum patterns from the hi-hat to the ride cymbal during each line in the verse, giving some lines extra clarity while others get a bit of cloudiness added to the mix. This song has some of Interpol’s most oblique lyrics (I never figured out what “sleep tight, grim ride, we have two hundred couches where you can sleep tonight” meant), though I do enjoy the lines “You’re so cute when you’re frustrated/you’re so cute when you’re sedated”, which can double as both sweet and alarming, depending on the context or your perspective. But it’s the breakdown into the outro which shows the band’s true musical genius, as one single guitar figure is countered with an alternate guitar figure, before the bass adds a third melodic line to an already complex mix. It’s absolutely sublime, and it’s a crime that the music video omitted this section.
When people want to mock Interpol and say that they’re a bunch of sad bastards, I like to point them to the song “Say Hello to the Angels” which has some lines with real, actual humor. Just think for a second what Paul is referring to when he says “I can’t control the part of me that swells up when you move into my airspace” (the line “1-2-3, do me” is a little less subtle). If you think that’s an inappropriate metaphor for a serious musician to use, then you clearly have never noticed the erection joke in Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Free”. Musically, I love the alternating moods of the song, from the frantic, driving beat that shifts into a bouncy shuffle, to the deliberate, almost-metal stomp at the end that’s augmented by those palm-muted, percussive guitar strokes.
“Hands Away” is in many ways similar to the opener “Untitled”, and is one of the clearer instances that helps support my theory that the second half acts as a mirror to the first half, with tracks 6-10 partnering up with 1-5. It’s not a perfect theory, but it’s worth thinking about once you’re listening to this half of the album. The song is practically a music theory exercise, with each section seemingly getting faster merely by adding a note to the rhythmic figure (going from quarter to eighth to triplets, etc.). The high point of the song is the gorgeous use of string synths at the climax, as it becomes too difficult to keep adding to the rhythmic figure as laid out before. It’s also worth noting how the vocals switch styles from the first half of the song to the second, from a delicate approach to a more distant and evocative wail at the end.
In my first listens of TOTBL, I had felt that “Obstacle 2” didn’t measure up to “Obstacle 1”, making the comparison in my head even though I had read that the band claimed that the two are unconnected despite the similar names. But over time I have come to love this song even more than its counterpart, even though I recognize the unique creative brilliance of the first one. “Obstacle 2” provides the perfect case to examine how Interpol uses those “subtle tweaks” with its various repetitions to subtly change both tone and meaning. In the pre-chorus, Paul sings “If you can fix me up, girl, we’ll go a long way” twice, but uses a different rhythm each time; the first has a bit of a bounce, reminiscent of someone skipping down the sidewalk, while the second one is deliberately straightforward and on the beat, as if to emphasize the importance of this declaration. This pre-chorus is also repeated twice, with Sam using a different drum fill each time; the first is simpler and emphasizing the downbeat, while the second stutters and staggers a bit. In a song filled with various references to drinking, both direct and indirect (“I stand by all this drinking if it helps me through these days”; “friends don’t waste wine when there’s words to sell”; “toast the snow that fell”), this helps indicate that perhaps the narrator is stumbling a bit as the alcohol begins to take hold. It also puts the final lines of “It took time, then I found you” in a whole new light, depending on how much you read into that interpretation–is it a declaration, or is it a lament?
“Stella was a diver and she was always down” almost works as a reverse of “NYC”–instead of building up, the song is slowly torn down, as seen by its extensive breakdown that concludes the song (forgive me, I’m trying all that I can to make my theory proposed in the write-up of “Hands Away” work). This song features my least-favorite Interpol lyric, but one I rarely see mentioned in those “bad lyric” roundups that critics love to employ when they bring up Interpol; I don’t care for the repetition in the line “the building fronts are just fronts”, especially since this pattern isn’t used elsewhere in the song, and it’s not even used to fit into a rhyme. I feel that “the building fronts are just that” would capture the same idea in a more poetic manner, as the listener could pause to realize the implication of the use of the word “front”. Speaking of lyrics, I’m pretty sure this song is referring to a woman engaging in the art of oral sex, giving a whole new meaning to the title and what specifically is the goal of the diving.
“Roland” is where you can really see where the “punk” in post-punk comes from, and the driving rocker is a great change of pace once “Stella” slowly disintegrated into the bottom of the sea. I love the riffs, especially the riffs reminiscent of spy movies, which I believe helps shed light on the otherwise cryptic lyrics. With this in mind, I believe that the song can be interpreted as a friend being interviewed about the unexpected violent crimes of an acquaintance, with the non sequiturs of the snow and the beard indicative of the narrator’s delicate mental state as he/she confronts the ugly reality of the person they thought they had known.
It took me years before I warmed up to “The New”, but now I believe that it is perhaps the best song on the entire album. It’s a multi-part epic that doesn’t feel burdened by those expectations; the six minutes fly by and though the fragile first half and the sinister second half differ greatly, one can find the connective tissue between the two parts. The song is an excellent showcase for all the talents of Carlos, beginning with his upper-octave melody that begins the song to his restrained support in the first bridge to his stuttering and funky maneuvers that help raise the anxiety of the listener during the song’s climax. It also includes yet another example of the “subtle tweak”, this time with the insertion of a single word that may or may not change the meaning of a line (depending on how you interpret double-negatives in music). First, Paul sings “I can’t pretend, I need to defend some part of me from you”, but on the next time through, he says “I can’t pretend I don’t need to defend some part of me from you”; once you realize that “don’t” can alter what Paul is trying to say, you then go back and realize that depending on the punctuation and emphasis, you can change the meaning of both lines once again. It’s a puzzle that potentially always remains unsolved.
I want to make a special note of the climax of “The New”, which shows once again highlights the strength of each member as musicians. I mentioned Carlos and his bass earlier, who makes excellent use of both the high and low end of his instrument (the latter of which whose sudden entrance near the end of the song helps give a foreboding warning), but I should also point out that the interplay between the two guitars is also mesmerizing. For the guitar solo, Daniel repeats a single note multiple times, creating a tension in the listener’s mind because he/she cannot predict what will happen next; Kessler then responds by actually detuning the string, relieving the tension by physically releasing tension in the string. Somehow the unconventional maneuver of detuning a guitar mid-song sounds more comforting to the ear, if only for a moment, than playing a normal note. After this section, Daniel and Paul play competing lines that both dance around the tonal center, spawning a different kind of tension by devising these unconventional two-note chords. This effort is all underscored by Sam’s efficient drumming, which both effortlessly shuffles between different patterns and provides excellent fills, most notably the big snare-roll fill for the final climax and the subtle crescendo emphasized hits that end the song.
The album concludes with the sublime “Leif Erikson”, an elegant midtempo number that carefully outlines the delicate relationship between opposing partners and worldviews. The guitar chords are often unconventional, using slight deviations from normal patterns to create feelings of unease, but the band carefully resolves the progression each time they’re played. The bridge features perhaps my favorite lyric of the album, which eloquently describes how clumsy the initial communications of love can be: “it’s like learning a new language…helps me catch up on my mime” is an excellent simile, evoking the memory in many people the difficulties of expressing one’s self in a foreign language and the various work-arounds we attempt in order to carry across our message. Once again, synths help provide some nice color, and in combination with the final little guitar solo helps the song end on a hopeful note.
That may have seen like a rather intensive analysis of the album, but it’s only a fraction of the total number of ideas that Turn on the Bright Lights has spurred in me. It’s that amazing of an album, and it’s the reason why I will forever be a fan of Interpol.
Rust Is Just Right 