We are the children of a generation who were not required to go to war; a generation with little meaning and few heroes. We are a DIY-driven mass of knowledge-gluttons who rarely converse without thinking we are right. We are the 30-somethings we knew we would be and we can’t wait to be the elder statesmen we are destined to be. We consider each of our favorite albums to be, at least somewhat, our anthem. There can’t be hundreds of anthems, though. There can’t be just one, either. Japandroids’ grasp of youth and folly certainly ranks them as spokespeople, and their music is certainly energetic and with causation. Their pinnacles speak highly of our indecision and vaguely of angst. They understand the mute-worthiness of speaking, even when there’s little to be said.

Of course, there’s your dividing line. Depending upon who you ask, pop music’s grasp on reality is fleeting already, and our generation’s understanding of life’s foibles is limited enough without art mirroring us. When “The Days of Nights and Roses” muses on meandering: “Don’t we have anything to live for?/ Well, of course we do/ but until they come true/ we’re still drinking/ and still smoking,” Japandroids are presupposing the line of questioning from older generations. I’m not giving them The Who status quite yet, but what, if any, question would you expect the older folks to ask us? Each question you get, each news story of wayward youth and each glaring eye you wander past is asking you, “What are you doing with your life?” Well, “Roses,” and all of Celebration Rock attempts to answer it. “We all want to know what nobody knows:/ what the nights of wine and roses hold… we don’t cry for those nights to arrive/ we yell like hell to the heavens.”

Sure, the answers lack the gravitas of a Springsteen story or a Dylan rant. No, Japandroids don’t describe the myopic sense of oneness we all feel when we see each other’s listlessness while waiting in line for food or at being bored online at work. What Celebration Rock captures is the non-unifying sensibility we’ve all been ironically jesting at in our speech, the countless hours of memes created out of far-reaching hopes to be recognized. Japandroids are the anti-voice we’ve been waiting for. Consider the repeated line in Fire’s Highway: “A Northern soul in Southern lands/ will find his way to Southern hands./ So, kiss away your gypsy fears/ and turn some restless nights to restless years.” The world-wearied traveller has a home in this record. The differentiations of our past generations are sullied. North-south, it doesn’t matter. Home is home now. The years we spent finding ourselves are summated, if not for ignoring why we left home in the first place.

Amidst all of the idealistic methodology of Celebration Rock, a forceful rock record still exists. In “Evil’s Sway,” the duo mixes “Oh yeah” and “alriiiiight” with a tactile riff– one that touches without touching though. There’s nothing entirely special about the rough bounce of “Evil’s Sway” other than the fact that it’s sonically astounding. It moves though heavy distortion and pop-punk splendor with manual dexterity; you can hear Japandroids trying to impress you while they do it. This is not effortless or seamless, just well done. A further example, “For the Love of Ivy’s” heavy blues riff is given vocal effects and repetition to a fault, except there’s no way to imagine it as a standout without so much effort behind it. As the song’s anti-hero threatens the lives of all that stand in his way, the listener is beaten to the ground.

And what generational gift would be complete without a song of layman’s poetry? The idea of drunk artists riding their steeds through stories we’d never understand are as old as Cervantes, but they never really age. “Adrenaline Nightshift” is a shimmering story from the heights and depths of late-night inspiration. In few cases can a muse be written into a song, but Japandroids are obviously wearing theirs on their sleeves: “…Still waiting for a generation’s bonfire to begin./ We’d muscle up some money/ or rattle loose a saber in the streets/ ’cause death’s got no respect for love and you’ve no respect for me./ There’s no high like this/ adrenaline nightshift.” The world’s worries are not always so preoccupied with the causes and concerns of the worldly. Japandroids’ mock-poetic cinders burn brighter than most full-on fires. These are the swan-songs of the new Sun Also Rises. The alcohol-swilling near-elites have stormed the castle of songwriting again, and I’m for it.

“Younger Us” pursues a more direct approach. Endearing memories endure the test of time in a full-on assault. If every generational anthem needs the imagery of age-failure juxtaposing the aforementioned youth and folly, Japandroids have provided both en masse. “Remember when we had them all on the run?/ And seeing the midnight sun?/ Remember saying things like we’ll sleep when we’re dead?/ And thinking this feeling was never gonna end?” These lyrics could just as easily be a Bob Seger jam, but the delivery is sharp. The music coalesces so well with the backwards-parallels that the listener would just as soon consider this their own past. And they should since the lyrics are purposefully transparent: “Give me younger us” the chorus repeats.

By  the time “The House that Heaven Built” blisters in, we’ve been assuming that the past and future are well set in stone. To explain, we drink until the future arrives, we drank awaiting something magical and we remember/will remember both times fondly. But this generation is affixed with more than memories and grand delusions. We also fell in love with the idea that the cities are there to save us. Where the generations before saw the cities as opportunities for upward mobility and monetary support, this generation sees those same cities as escapes from those former generation’s dreams. When “The House…” begins with, “When the soul of the city/ was laid to rest/ and the nights forgotten/ and left for dead,” it’s a shock to the system of belief. How could another anthem begin with the death of escape? If this generation is filler without finality, Japandroids must know something we don’t. The song describes a house where “everything evil/ disappears and dies.” Is this the new cull of the suburban life?

It’s not that simple, of course. There’s the eponymous “they.” There’s the restlessness of settling down, but still heating up. “When they love you and they will,/ tell them all to love in my shadow/ and if they try to slow you down/ tell them all to go to hell.” The in-between logic, the refusal of love’s grand authority, it’s all very post-punk without all the messy Fugazi riffs or intent to pacify. “It’s a lifeless life with no fixed address to give/ but you are not mine to die for anymore so I must live.” If any one line sums up a generational idea of love and detachment, then this one will challenge it. Has the old motto of ‘God, Country, Family’ fallen ill? The positional default, or the idea that settling down and understanding life from one spot with one grasp, is on notice.

As “Continuous Thunder” hits each bramble of description, Japandroids have made their points. Celebration Rock ends the way it begins: the pop of fireworks and the clack of drums is over, and the only real choice is to process the ideas: “Oh and if I had all of the answers and you had the body you wanted/ would we love with a legendary fire?” The album is just as open-ended as the question. As we doubt ourselves, we realize the only constants are doubt and self-doubt. Do we have anything to live for? Well, of course we do. This generation lives to question the ideals of the generations before it. And because of those questions we are wary of our roles, be they gender, parental, youthful, intelligent, or ignorant. It’s not technology that is spurning a revolution, it’s just good, old-fashioned thought. If this generation needs an anthem for dissension through indecision, it has found an album willing to try and define that. Celebration Rock is an instant classic: just abstract, antithetical, and absurd to be ignored and just as simple, driving, and brilliant to be lauded for years to come. Let’s hope people can focus on the latter rather than dismiss the record. That said, if “they” dismiss, we can just call them haters and tell them all to live in our shadow. We can tell them all to go to hell. We’re still drinking.

There are times when the chasm of Reks’ lyrics open up and a song like “Chasin” occurs. And other times he switches up his flow to play around with another MC and a song like “Riggs and Murtagh” happens. Then there are times when he becomes a braggart amongst braggarts and a song like “Such a Showoff” happens. No matter what happens, though, REKS submits to style in a way that not many MCs can pull off. Thinking about the precision it takes for an MC to effortlessly fall into several styles in one album, I can’t help but ignore the weaknesses of Straight, No Chaser.

I mean, the weaknesses are there: Statik Selektah has a style and it can get old in a whole album. REKS does have a tendency to fall apart when he gets too conceptual (”Sins” comes to mind). The guest stars don’t really add much, for the most part, since they are very similar to REKS (show off, show off); the exception being Action Bronson’s back-and-forth in “Riggs and Murtagh.” But that’s all background to how REKS handles his voice, his make-up. If R.E.K.S. was the introduction to his mindset, Straight, No Chaser is his announcement of how he’ll be handling future business. We’ve been warned and business is good.

We’re introduced to Straight with “Autographs,” a flow-heavy, soul jam that brings his penchant for brag-rap to the forefront. The Street People sample mixed with a Beastie Boys hook rules and REKS kills it. Sure, the “rap game is hard” lyrics can be a little boring sometimes, but he’s got a knack for taking the mundane and making gold. Statik has a knack for making hooks from other rappers’ best work, and “Sit/Think/Drink” uses Common in the hook. REKS just may not be a hook-spitter. That said, this is a slow, piano-scratch jam that works well. “Power Lines” speeds up again as REKS goes hard over an Eon/Snap! beat with Ea$y Money providing the hook and guest spot.

From there, the palate never really changes. I mentioned “Riggs and Murtagh,” and it being good. It’s a crooked cop type of song, fun as hell and has way more one-upsmanship than any other song on the record. Neither does the beat a disservice, nor the album. “Show Off” and “Cancel That” are fun songs with a few too many verses from average rappers that aren’t on REKS’ level of familiarity with making a Statik beat work. JFK, Wais P and other rappers don’t really detract, but they add nothing special. Wais P, actually, sounds like a more vulgar REKS on “Cancel That.” “Parenthood” is a downer about unplanned pregnancies, but necessary to remind us that REKS is as good on a downer as he is an energetic beat. He conveys a sad tale well without having to interject his own problems unless they are relatable. I appreciate that.

I mentioned “Chasin” already, but it is a standout. REKS’ flow is at its best here, the drum loop carries the beat, making the whole track seem like a hungry one. “Sins” is an unfortunate misstep, killed by the overall lack of brilliance in every case: the flow is staccato, the concept of seven sins is overplayed and outmoded. The real saving grace is the sped-up vocal loop in the background and the fact that it is a short song. “Straight, No Chaser” is a good return to the beginning themes or how good REKS is a rapper and how he likes to let us know that. Slaine’s flow is out-of-place but not terrible enough to destroy the song outright. It’s a good bridge to the slowdown at the end of the album, and another reminder that REKS can sound commercially viable, despite his usual lack of commercial appeal.

“Lost in Translation” and “Regrets” are personal journeys that provide some cool social commentary– sort of the comeback from being so up-front and salacious earlier in the album. It’s his way of apologizing but not really apologizing at the same time. In “Regrets,” he says, “I don’t care to apologize for being racist or misogynist/ we’re all sinners.” He knows the traps of rap ensnare him like anyone else who writes a bragging rhyme or threatens the lyrical life another MC. He makes no excuses other than to say he’s good in all situations. Album-closer “730″ does exactly that– there’s no hook, no repeated lines, no guest stars or even Statik tag. There’s no time, REKS is too busy destroying the beat. He’s not into writing the club-banger or the drug anthem, but he’s definitely a skilled MC. He’s not gonna get the attention he craves or the stardom he desires, but he’ll continue to impress. If Straight, No Chaser is business as usual for REKS, I’m looking forward to more of the same.

I waited until two days after Port of Morrow was released to buy it. For those that know my level of Shins adoration, the wait was unusual. Maybe it was an affront to my fandom, but I wasn’t all that impressed with the Shins pre-album performances. SNL, Letterman, youtube clips, it was all a mass of garbled wonder and it left me bewildered. How can I hold any disdain for a band that put out three outstanding albums? Was it too much to ask that a too-long absence produce a fourth masterwork? Hold on, I’ll explain why it was and turned out not to be.

So often, bands spiral downward. I think Jawbreaker’s Dear You (the fourth studio album from my favorite band) is a standout example. Critically destroyed, childishly flamboyant, over-recorded, Dear You is a trainwreck at times, but that’s why I love it. I’m not entirely sure why it was panned so vehemently– perhaps the saturation of emotional rock music led folks astray on the purpose of the album. Perhaps their popularity amongst adoring fans made dismissal an obvious choice. Jawbreaker was the exact crossroads: too small to fail and too popular to quit. Dear You turned into a labor of love, but wasn’t worth the problems it caused. Often, a band’s shelf-life is shorter than the albums they continue to create. That’s all I could think about as the release date neared: The Shins’ popularity and relative obscurity were demonizing what should have been an exciting day.

I was too young to really know why Jawbreaker fell apart or why people didn’t like Dear You. I was old enough to hear people complain about Wincing the Night Away not being as good as the Shins’ previous efforts. It was as if the album were an affront to those that worshipped Chutes Too Narrow and an excuse to dismiss The Shins for those who didn’t love them anyway. I figured it was their last release. Once James Mercer started writing with Danger Mouse, his path diverged from mine and I was content with the three albums he gave the Shins’ moniker. Hell, I even loved Wincing, unlike most folks I knew. There was nothing missing. The Shins were infallible and they’d chosen to stay that way. Then, I saw pitchfork articles touting terribly recorded live material. Then iTunes released “Simple Song.” Then the release date. Then my trepidation and waiting.

Had The Shins ruined my attraction to them? After 7 years, the idea of a new Shins record was more appealing than actually knowing one was coming. I held off on listening to bad recordings, opting instead for the “Simple Song,” a Cars-esque theatrical love song. I waited for SNL’s sneak peek too, hoping for a decent sound, but I wasn’t impressed. The company I was in were not Shins fans– not even close– so maybe they had affected how I heard the performance.

See, that’s where I failed: I needed to cull my youthful exuberance. When Dear You came out, I was just excited to hear from Jawbreaker again. I wasn’t worried about their stranding in the music world or what I would think if the record wasn’t great. After all the hand-wringing, I read what my friend wrote on facebook (thanks, Scott H.) and I got excited again. To paraphrase: “I’m a sucker for the Shins.” Me too, I forgot. So why am I scared? Two days after the release of what should have been my most anticipated album in a decade, I came home from work, copped Port of Morrow, and got comfy. My fears washed away pretty quickly– by the time Mercer refrains, “You were always to be a dagger floating straight to their heart,” I was satiated. Port of Morrow is great and I’ve listened to it damn near exclusively since I bought it. Fears allayed, I focused on why I would be so fretful, fell into a rabbit-hole of Chutes proportions and have reminded everyone I know of how good this band was/is.

The difference in my youthful ignorance and my world-wearied exterior isn’t personified often: I’ve softened on so many issues and I’m no elitist. Port of Morrow is not an album with grandiose pertinence like their past work. In fact, it’s a bit more direct and preachy rather than story-telling or dynamic. “September” is a grand exception. “40 Mark Strasse,” “Simple Song,” “It’s Only Life,” and “Fall of ‘82″ are all direct messages and unlike anything Mercer has ever done. All the songs masterpieces, collectively, Port of Morrow straddles the line between cheesiness and exaltation. Either way, it’s pop-perfection. He croons over certain songs, whispers and crawls over others. Even the iTunes b-side “Pariah King” serves as an example of how good Mercer is. Filler keyboard rambles, strangely entrancing vocal-highs and philosophical understandings of life amongst the bottom-feeders underline the one thing I wasn’t expecting: I love this band despite their absences and faults. I love them despite my own.

I was planning on just writing “It’s excellent,” and leaving the review at that. And it would’ve done this album some justice. Port of Morrow deserves the boring backstory, though. The Shins deserve my collective sighs and overwrought personality. They deserve everything I’ve got, because they’ve been consistently astounding for this long. Wrapping my head around Mercer’s genre-bending boldness is never old, despite how long I wait. I’m ready to believe again, The Shins. You’ve earned more than what I offered this record, but it won’t happen again, I promise. With renewed vigor, I’m telling everyone the truth. Port of Morrow is more than a comeback record, it’s more than a return to greatness, it’s more than perfection.

It’s excellent.

Amongst the rubble of my past life, there’s few bands I tried to hold onto despite them being out of the public eye. Most of them were during my time in NYC and are either completely different from when I heard them then or have stopped making music altogether. Some I’ve stayed in contact with, others have slipped through the cracks. Somewhere in the rubble, I got a hold of a record I really liked, this little minimal EP from Electricians. I can still sing a couple of the songs, even. I was awaiting a bigger, longer, more produced LP; something that brought their sound more definition and weight. I’m here to admit I was mistaken. You don’t need the production help, Electricians. A full LP of what you have is just fine.

Running begins and ends at the peak of their talent level. At no time are they overshooting or adding filler to give their songs added beef. In fact, the first sounds you hear on the album’s opener, “Actuator” are filler before they break into straightforward rock-and-roll riff as if to beckon the idea of largeness and shun it. The song is under two minutes, a perfect introduction to Running. The more staid and lyrically-driven “Sorry About the Snow” follows suit. A three-minute jam that vacillates between low-boil and full-out yelling (”Wooooooooah, the winter’s not that cold.”), it sets up for the meat of the album.

“Common Era” is a straight-ahead rock anthem. It feels short (longest song yet) because of the verse-chorus-verse structure and the direct action Electricians plug into the song. The most single-worthy jam on Running, “Common Era” showcases the catchy, driven side of the band. The polar opposite, “Tall Trees” is my favorite song they’ve written yet. Youthful expression from an adult viewpoint is often tough, but Electricians focus on a specific image: “As a young boy/ I had a penchant/ for sleeping under, sleeping under/ tall trees.” It’s this kind of image that brings the listener to a different place than the normal song from a kids’ perspective. Further, they soften the blow on a cheesy chorus openner like “Now, you’re older and time flies by./ Hold on to what you can.” That kind of ‘outrospection,’ as I call it when whimsy takes the place of actuality, is forgivable and touching when it accompanies a solid song structure and a cool image, even if repeated. The ending, acting as a bridge to nowhere, is a deft touch to a pretty terrific overall song.

“Seasons” marks the continuation of the album’s best songs. A new vocalist takes over and adds some punch to another slow jam. “Seasons” is less evocative than the songs before it, but it adds to the theme of time passing– a general theme on Running that isn’t a concept but a continually explored idea. I’m not sure that time’s passing is purposeful since so many of Electricians’ songs are purposefully opaque and the theme is well-explored in the rock world. If the album falls short on that theme, I’d take it as a compliment to the listener and the band that we are spared a long explanation on why humans and time correlate. Instead, we get “So Long,” a nice ditty about waiting on a lost communication. We also get the end of the album’s first act, “Big Cliche,” a title that makes fun of their penchant for borrowing classic rock’s riffs, lyrics, and, in this case, vocals.

“Simking” and “Underwater” bleed into one another and earmark the beginning of a new direction on the album. A flaw of Running is the sheer number of songs, but I’m not bored at this point. “Underwater” is a strange jam: “We’ll build a colony under the water/ where we can be at home. Building castles for our sons and our daughters/ with laws of our own./ Such great ideas for us all to follow/ at the end of the world.” A post-apolocalyptic song that doubles as an invitation to live impossibly on the floor of the ocean is a bit jarring and so is the delivery. The whispered-melodic vocals are at times given studio-wetness before a shout-chorus of “Everyone is coming./ We want you to be there.” And the song ends abruptly. The more I hear “Underwater,” the more I question it, but it’s a conversation piece. I wonder why it was included, but the oddity is cleansing and I’m glad the song is there.

Electricians don’t cede their past efforts. “Elephant” is a song from an earlier EP under the psuedonym Hello Later. The song is charged with a little cowbell and distortion, but it doesn’t lose it’s charming chorus or metaphorical vagueness that allows me to love it. Previously, I’d challenged Hello Later to write something longer and more substantial. Seeing Elephant on here harkened me back to that challenge. I tip my cap. “Forgot About You” sounds like a castaway from their first release and that is not a detriment. The simplistic drums, the whistling, the faraway sound, it’s all a confluence of seeming effortlessness that I remarked on the first time I heard them. They’ve not lost that. Ending the album with “Dreaming” and a hidden punk jam about Democracy shows how intriguing their style can be. In the true “indie” way, the influences are often worn on sleeves and that’s no different here. “Dreaming” is a 60s echo-voiced throwback and the hidden jam (probably called “Surfin’ the USSR) reminds me exactly to the parody track on Built To Spill’s There’s Nothing Wrong With Love. As “Dreaming” ends with a repeated call of “Where did the time go,” we’re subtly reminded of the beginning of the album again– when Electricians were at their best. I’m not berating the later songs, I was happiest early in the album.

Perhaps an explanation is in order: Running is a celebration of Electricians, albeit a bit scattered in the later songs. The album is really good, but not perfect. I probably won’t put it in a best-of list or anything. There are moments of specific clarity here. I mentioned all of them, but I haven’t mentioned one last thing: I’d rather listen to this than the polished, beloved versions of these songs. There are bigger bands with money, polish and the time to consistently write and release songs like this and they can’t touch what Running provides. I haven’t heard a rock band release a song like “Tall Trees” or “Underwater.” The chances Electricians take are unrealistic goals made to sound like indie rock gems. Some are better than others, but the experiment is worth more than a few hypotheses. With experiments come realization and Running has a lot of realization and some jams to add to an already weighty collection of favorites.

Ed. note: Upon originally posting, I forgot to include a link to the album on bandcamp. I regret that. Name your own price for a damned fine album here.

I’ve never reviewed a Life and Times record, yet I’ve been an outspoken fan of every record and EP they’ve ever touched. Of course, now that I operate a music blog with no restrictions, they’ve decided to put out their strangest record to date: an explorative vision of love, violence, and overwrought devotion. Each song is a representative demand: some songs are declarations of lovely and desirous commands to gain a lover’s attention, others are penetrating decisions that border on madness. In either case, recording a concept as simple and engrossing as this one demands a different approach: each song is a day in the life, or more correctly a day in the thoughts, of a person attempting to ensnare his mate. No One Loves You Like I Do is a penetrating look inside love’s consuming force. Therefore, I decided to place the songs in order to possibly expose the core of the album. Experimentation begets experimentation.

“Day One” is a confessional. Beyond the normal “boy sees girl, boy likes girl” or vice-versa, the first lyric is “If you love me/ I will love you/ and if you don’t/ I’ll still love you.” It’s assumptive to think that’s creepy or abnormal, but the song continues that vibe. Later: “If you sleep,/ I will watch you./ In your dreams/ you might love me/ and set my  fingers/ through your fingers/ just like lovers.” The breathy delivery builds to a boiling point of riff-led theatrics in the middle of the song. This record isn’t lacking for instrumental breaks with manic drum fills or repeated phrses. Point of fact, these are often the closest thing we get to choruses. The wall of acerbic guitar is not conditional either. Even during downtempo times, background filler is an important and distinctive voice in the record. As the song progresses, the noises grow louder as the speaker of the song proclaims his intents to love fiercely and forever.

By “Day Two,” it’s apparent that our protagonist has an antecedent or two to proclaim. What has driven this man to such heights of confession? “Nothing moves me./ Nothing moves me now.” The dreaminess is exactly that from “Day One”: vapor. The singular focus of the record is in “Day Two.” If he was confessing his love before and the band was following him musically, now he has focus and clarity. So, too, does the band. A bass and drum-led verse come full-throttle in the chorus. A pair of reverberated keyboard notes lapse in the background. “No one sees me./ No one can see me now.” Is the protagonist now fully enveloped in the dream world– the one where lovers’ hands have intertwined? If so, the music develops a less passive tone that we would imagine. The last 2:30 of the song explores a side of the record we won’t see again. “Day Two” is breakdown-laden and nearly porous. It slips into holes of harsh basslines and breakbeats, but never overpowers the listener. The keys, the wailing of the singer (”nothing sees me”) all point to a waking dream.

“Day Three” follows further down the seething rabbit-hole. The songs lyrics are the most realistic and relationship-like on No One. The opening drone fades the song into a beginning crescendo: “When the fight began/ dogs just barked and children ran/ and as our hopes went dry/ we lit our cigarettes from off the fire.” Then the “chorus”: “That’s the way it’s always been.” There’s double meaning here. Both the current relationship and the idea of a relationship are called to task here. Personally, I love the image of a fight driving dogs and babies to emotion and causing a metaphorical fire. The second verse: “We vanished without a trace,/ Can’t explain how we got to that place./ They said that mistakes were made,/ the very same mistakes we’ve made/ and history will eat itself.” There’s extra measures to repeat “They say mistakes were made.” The comparatives between the current relationship and society’s view of the relationship continues. The vague “they” judge from the outside of love, as “they” are wont to do, but the protagonist’s cry of “History will eat itself” maintains the album’s theme: even in a tough time, No One Loves You Like I Do. Truly, this is delusion beyond grandeur, a modern Heloise and Abelard story. Once the speaker claims his love will outlast the collision of stars and the destruction of earth, the rest is noise, quite literally.

Day Four: none

“Day Five” is a return to the dream songs. Allen Epley’s vocals/the bassline are hyper-distorted and used in short bursts over long-spiraling vibraphone keys. Declarative and promissory, the lyrics state simply the plans to make the protagonist’s life complete. The chorus-like repetition of “No one loves you like I do” re-introduces the unhealthy obsessiveness prevalent through most of the album. “All your friends?/ Forget them./ I’ll be the one who keeps your hopes and secrets/ locked away so they can’t steal them.” He’s protective to a fault here, protecting the only important item ever discussed on the album.

“Day Six,” musically, is the most like the past incarnations of The Life and Times. Big, heavy bass strokes lead the drums in a cymbal-less drive through the first 1:20 of the song before noisy feedback and delayed vocals take the song over. That first 1:20 continues the protective vibe of “Day Five’s” lyrics, only with a commanding voice unheard of until now. He warns the wandering mind of his lover not to get tangled or lost since, “I’m the one/ be good to me/ I’ll lock the door/ and eat the key.” We’ve moved from love-letters and musing to masculine fieriness. If love is not perfect, enclose it. Heloise, meet Rapunzel. Meanwhile, “Day Six” is an achievement in other ways: the drums drop in and out when the moments merit them. The fluidity of the guitars fills the song out entirely and Epley’s sharp vocal structures fill a void rather than accentuating and already crowded musical house. His most triumphant lyrical moment sets the stage for the rest of the record: “Find someone. / Fall in Love./ Give Your Soul./ Lose your soul./ Lose their love./ Find someone else./ Take their love.” This is the closest the listener gets to the mentality of the speaker. The lack of faith in the conundrum of love, the pattern of love, the overall unpleasing nature of continuance is finally a form-fitting way to describe our protagonist. He’s not just a stalker, he’s a man as tired of emotion as many of us. And he’s directing his pain.

Day Seven: none

Day Eight: “All of a sudden/ everything changes/ no hiss or warnings/ no signs pointing the way / friends are floating farther away.” An acoustic-guitar driven jam about how lost people get in each other for extended periods of time? Yeah, I’m with that. But then, the shift: “There’s no place for comfort./ There’s no one to keep you from harm/ but I’ll be waiting.” This is the end of the dream, the final idea of the record (in real time, anyway). As the protagonist is floating toward a harsh reality, he’s realizing how far away from love he might actually be, if love is shared. He’s alone. When the song hits its huge, noisy crescendo, the “floating in space” feeling finally takes the full undertaking the album has suggested all along. A headbanging drumline is under a wonderfully dreamy, if seldom-hit, riff. The whole concept feel like it dies in this song, this set of noises, this falling away from the dream of love.

Then, back to the grind of direct-speak and intimidation in “Day Nine.” “Baby, lift the weight off your shoulders./ Take the fucking weight off your shoulders and throw it./ Forget everything that they told you./ They could never take away what I have shown you.” Now that “they” are back in the picture, the music is more menacing and back to building collisions and the lyrics reflect it: “Put away your makeup now baby./ Baby, show your those bruises,/ there’s no shame there./ Put away your makeup now baby,/ show them what they’ve done to your eyes.” We’re nine days in, and the plot has turned entirely. From the descriptive dreamscapes and subtly dreamy narrative comes reality’s treason. The protagonist’s love is too powerful, all-consuming. And like most positions of power, the system of love is corrupt. Heloise, Rapunzel? There’s a big, bad wolf awaiting you. “Dance through the room,/ stitch in your head,/ pulling it through/ with needle in thread.” Dangerous obsessions still find beauty. Though it’s a story we see so often, it’s never less powerful when done well. If the love seemed unrequited before, the love now seems all-too-realistic and fatal here. The final choral minute-plus is a definitive view of how well this band captures a moment. It’s uncomfortably bass-heavy and disproportionately overwhelming compared to the rest of the album– and rightfully so.

If “Day Nine” is the violent focal point of the record, “Day Ten” is the actuality of thought. The protagonist is through proclaiming through words or violence. He’s rested his laurels with a simple decision: “You’ll discover/ I’m the only one who cares./ No one dares./ So I decided/ to write a letter from my heart…” This action of apology, no matter how misguided, is the definition of failed perception. The protagonist, now the antagonist, cannot apologize enough, but still shows the capability of humility: “I’m the servant and the master all in one/ thy will be done.” Can a more beautiful line be quoted from the mouth of a lost soul? We’re seeing Paradise Lost here or a house divided by action, mended by words. It truly doesn’t matter what “they” (or even we/I) think. There is only his love, accepted or no. “So, keep on walking,/ pass the others in the halls./ They’ll never call./ And when you wake up,/ I’m the only one who’ll see. Just you and me.” Love is a lonely bastard, eh? “Day Ten” is the modern scope of intangible, unthinkable love.

“Day Eleven” is a stop-start, herky-jerky, even reactionary track. The protagonist is questioning the power of his subject’s love. Like a series of tests: would you kill for me? Would you save me? Would you take care of me? Would you transcend love to be perfect with me? “There is nothing I won’t do/ to prove to all my love for you” is layered through the end of the song in a delicate, beautiful tracking/studio trick to add a layer we’ve not seen on the record thus far. While questions remain for our speaker, there is no questioning how good this record is any longer. Cheesy lines to win the lover’s heart included, this song defines the record’s hazy, limitless musicianship. Impressively layered, masterfully culling the feeling from tired lyrics, “Day Eleven” would be my favorite song on this record if it were a lesser record.

It isn’t a lesser record. Culling voices of the past (Failure comes immediately to mind), The Life and Times create a sonic distance throughout this record only to make a single, brilliant track that recalls the spacey rock tracks that made this band one of my favorites. An overconfident speaker proclaims that he will slip back into his ex-lover’s skin. At no time did we really know if the two were apart until now, but the speaker refers to his love as an example of brilliance. The chorus (yes, the verse-chorus-verse system exists on this album at least once) has a beautiful harmony that drives even harder than the rhythm section’s impeccable timing. “My love is alive/ My love is sublime/ like the light from a thousand suns.” He ends the song, and effectively the entire thought process/ concept: “Splashed up to the ocean floor/ I can’t get you out of my head.” There is nothing, even his own failure, that can keep his love at bay.  Not the ocean, nor the sun. Sure, we’ve heard that line before. It doesn’t stop the idea from existing. Nor does it stop No One Loves You Like I Do from delivering the opus.

So, I reviewed a Life and Times record finally. While I’m scratching that off the ole bucket list, I should speak to the overall brilliance of the record, but I’m wiped out, man. This was like two weeks of thinking only about this one record for the most part. Trying to understand it, to stop being so in love with it and failing, making it my favorite record of the year, being disgusted with how much drivel the lyrics present, knowing that drivel creates the everyman character speaking to us, loving “Day Nine” so much… it all became a hassle. Then I started actually writing. This record is meant to be analyzed, pulled apart, disassembled, reassembled, denied/forgotten/remembered/rescued. No One loves this record like I do, probably. It is an oft-spacey dreamscape and and oft-realistic depiction of love’s ever-consuming bounty. The Life and Times wrote a record for the ages to be lost on most and never heard by more than most. No One Loves You Like I Do represents so much about why I write about music, and so little about music itself. You can probably see why I am so obsessed with it and you’ll excuse me if I don’t care what “they” say about it. Or don’t say. They’ve probably said enough. I can’t get them out of my head. Don’t want to.

Side note, Here’s the actual order of the album:

Day Six, Day Nine, Day One, Day Five, Day Three, Day Eleven, Day Ten, Day Two, Day Twelve, Day Eight. You can cut-and-paste to that order if you want. Experimentation begets experimentation.

It’s possible that these were just the days spent in the studio recording the songs, but if you present a theme as strong as different phases of love? The listener has to assume something thematic in the titles is a corollary. At least, if you are a listener so obsessive that you listen to albums 10 times before you write about them, you see that corollary. If each day is representative of a different emotional connection (as I think they are), the worst I’ve done is talk about the songs out of order.

When I bought two Sonna records in the fall of 2003, I had no reason to think I’d ever really fall in love with them. They were $4 apiece, used. I was working at WUAG in Greensboro, NC and had played Sonna a few times on my radio show. The musicianship seemed scattershot– music to write to and forget. In fact, I really only listened to them that fall. The records themselves sat on my shelves (reverse alphabetical order; next to Seam and Sebadoh) for a good four years before my rediscovery of We Sing Loud Sing Soft Tonight.

It was a true NYC winter in 2009. Those who know winter walking know how snowy weather compounds walking. They know how snow means more walking, harder walking. It means tricky slopes and steps, ice spots and huge hills of piled-up black snow along walkable parts of the sidewalk and street. It means constant vigilance. Once you get home, the bottoms of your jeans freezing cold and wet, it meant relaxing in the warmth. I went on a record exploration during those cozy nights. I was working on my first book and decided to break out the instrumental jams of a few years ago. When I ran across Sonna I furrowed my brow. They were exactly what I needed, but I couldn’t remember even buying the records.

On the first snare hits of “Opener,” I remembered the entire album. I love that feeling. That “Oh yeah” expression you realize you have as the warm melodies collapse around you. So much of Sonna’s work collapses on you rather than building around you, it seems. For the whole first side of the record (”Opener,” “Low and To the Side,” and We Sing Loud”) I sat transfixed, legs folded over one another, nodding. When Chris Mackie sang me out of my reveries with a harsh, off-key falsetto, I wasn’t upset by it. The repetition, the prettiness, and the sweeping nothingness of the album needed him. He breaks the album in half– there’s the opening coldness followed by his gusts of wind. “We Sing Loud” is a passing whimsy, “Sing Soft Tonight” is a defeating drag. Either way, the songs are long, masterfully decorated post-rock remnants. They earmark a time when we thought this would be the next big thing, that maybe “our music” would affect the world. Instead, post-rock is signified by bands at the mercy construction, playing to appreciative small crowds. So it was and so it still is with very few exceptions.

“Sleep On It” is a show poster on the wall: a blank space underneath album art for a club to put their names and the local openers. Sonna is that local opener, that friend’s band you finally went to see after you missed the first few shows. “Sleep On It” dictates your movement. You want to go to the bathroom, but you can’t leave the song for more than a moment. I was unable to change from my winter-soiled clothes. I sat on the couch, TV on mute and unwatched, the walls of my apartment rattling with minimal low end. We blasted a lot of music in that Astoria apartment, but I am not sure I ever played anything so loud. “Sleep On It” presses into you with an opening riff spiraling upward to an apex marked by lively additions: an occasional bass drawl, harmonius ring-outs and then, at the point you might get bored, the song shifts definitively. “Sleep On It” brings drums and a new riff. The relative distance of that upward spiral crashes into the listener as a defiant, triumphant roar. Not the kind of expansive roar other bands cheaply get with distortion or with extra instrumentation, no, Sonna earns their ending. You may have come to see the band featured on the poster, but you will remember that they were bested that night. You might even steal the poster from the door to remember Sonna’s name.

“Real Quiet” closes the album on an upbeat note. Rolling drums lead a quaint, simple riff. In a way, “Real Quiet” barely belongs on the album. If not for the production, this song would be quite un-Sonna. At under 5 minutes, the song is gone in a flash. The bass is lively, at least in comparison to the rest of the album, and the riffs interchange with one another for control of your ear. Unlike the other songs, there’s nowhere to go and that’s fine. Necessity can be the enemy of the instrumental song. So “Real Quiet” builds a bit and ends with a “bigger” sound than the others. In a way, Sonna is reminding the listener how easy it is for them to manipulate sound. Instead of lamenting misplaced beefiness, they end with all the power they possess for We Sing Loud Sing Soft Tonight.

Now it’s 2012, I’m driving around instead of walking so much, and there was no winter to of which to speak as of mid-February. Some gracious souls forgot to throw the Sonna records out when I visited my old job upon returning to WUAG-Greensboro. I was back in North Carolina to live. The record store I’d bought Sonna in had closed, no one had them for download online and I was broke. All my records were in boxes, yet to be moved from NYC. If not for the radio station, Sonna may have been lost again. I ripped the entire catalog (two albums, two EPs). Those who know the drive through Virginia on I-85 know the monotony, the tediousness of towering trees as far as you can see. But what they don’t know is monotony can be beautiful. As tough as it is to stay awake, it’s easier to sleepwalk. As hard as it is to walk through snow, it’s easier to sit and marvel. It’s these times, I turn to Sonna. In 2005, I didn’t know what I had. The same can be said for now, only I’ve collected some artifacts along the way. We Sing Loud Sing Soft Tonight often finds me lost and gathers me found.

This week’s installment of the singles club is a strange one. I’m featuring Action Bronson and Riff Raff’s “Bird On a Wire” which belongs to those names as much as the beach belongs to a cottage owner. From the introduction of the rolling bass line and the first 80’s style hook, this is a Harry Fraud joint. Dude’s a good producer, being billed as an up-and-comer by magazines paid to ignore up-and-comers. He’s a darling of rap blogs. The fact that Riff Raff– a soulja boy tell ‘em offshoot bro and MTV “star” of “From G’s to Gents”– is on this track just shows how much money soulja boy is gonna throw around to get his people good beats. Bronson is a mediocre rapper with some good songs sprinkled throughout his career. He slows his Ghostface-style flow down to fit the beat and it is pretty obvious he is the talent here. He drops a couple jewels, including my personal favorite “Tailor me a leather suit/ on some Jodeci shit/ Bi-coastal, man/ We supposed to be rich.” It’s a faux-DOOM flow which works since he and Raff are just background noise anyway. I’d like to personally thank Riff Raff for only staying on the track for like 30 seconds and letting the beat ride proper. Also, thanks for dropping 30 brand names into that 30 seconds. You have a really bright future ahead of you.

Back to the backbone: this beat fucking knocks. I want to drive a flying car over every American city with more than 200,000 people in it, urinate on park-trees and keep this beat on blast. I want to carve this beat into my shoes using esperanto. I want to figure out the world’s hardest rubick’s cube with only this beat as my guide. I want to live inside this beat while it stares lovingly at its two mothers from a swimming pool. Even the programmed drums are perfect. It’s my jam. I hope it can be your jam too. What would it take to get Meek Mill to freestyle over this? Can we get some good rappers to jump on it? If anyone hears anything, let me know. Until then, I’m on my “ignorance is bliss” grind, this song turned all the way up on computer speakers until the MP3 leaks.

Ed. Note: It’s new idea time. Every so often, Joe and I will be talking about singles we like in anticipation of new reviews. Get some.

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib – Thuggin’

Freddie Gibbs and Madlib collaborating is a dream collaboration and if 10 listens is all I need to review something, I can likely review this three times already. Gibbs goes in hard, Madlib’s production is, as usual, astounding and the beginning sample rules. Even more maddening is that the B-side, “Deep,” could be even better. When this album comes out, I might never be heard from again. I plan on bumping this and driving around for days until I run out of money/gas and have to sell drugs to get back on my feet. I mean, why not? I could be thuggin’, right? Right? In any event, is the whole album as tight as the Thuggin’ EP? If so, I’m gonna be hard-pressed to find a better album this year.

The Shins – Simple Song

Time for a totally different direction. I’m an unabashed Shins fan and I’m all kinds of pumped about Port of Morrow. That said, this song is super-produced, the lyrics lack their normal storytelling fervor and, overall, I’m not sure if I love it. I know I like it, but The Shins have never really had a single I didn’t absolutely love. Maybe I can force myself to love it. Just maybe, the rest of the album will crush this synth-driven hook-jam. Either way, “Simple Song” is pretty good, at the very least, and I am shaking in anticipation for a new Shins record. Believe that.

Cataloguing melancholy is hardly a new thing, especially in folk. It just never gets old. Jeremy Squires represents all that goes well and all that makes sense about an age-old practice. His first record, A Place to Hide, places emphasis on simplicity and melody with a penchant for specious lyrics. Squires sports a saccharine delivery. His is a passively haunting croon that passes through the songs rather than dominating them. Perhaps the recording lends to that softness, but the delicacy sounds intentional. Squires’ delivery and dimensional understanding of the songs is stronger than these recordings can capture. That said, A Place to Hide is a solid debut.

Opener “Evil Things” represents the album well. The guitar moves over light drumming while piano accentuates the background. Squires vacillates between light and dark, dream and waking dream. The power in the song comes in a build, like the lyrics, with cymbal-led clutter and the clack of muted snare. “Just Like Magic” echoes the craftsmanship of “Evil Things” on a quieter level. An autumnal song, “Just Like Magic” isn’t the best on the album, but it might be the best delivered. Long, held-out notes cruise over the methodical guitar as Squires bounces from lazy verses into sharp choruses. The song shows the best strengths of the album while shying away from weakness. As the album continues, it’s easy to forget this song until you revisit it.

A Place to Hide presents so many moments to revisit. “Now That Your Gone” and “The Collector” are the strongest on the album. “Now That You’re Gone” is the album’s best use of melody. The song sounds like a back porch sing-along with a steel guitar line over everything to add a balanced, delicate side to a wintery jam. Squires himself is on full display– you can almost hear him clenching his eyes shut to capture the memories he’s providing the listener. “The Collector” is the best-written song. When he sings “I remember everything/ I once was,” the sentiment comes from a believable character. It’s tough to believe that A Place to Hide is a debut. Consistently good, the album peaks on these jams– finds a new level of co-existance with the rasp of Squires’ voice, the twang of the guitar licks and even the hiss of production.

The believability of Place is a consistent trend. While some of the songs bleed together (a sign of too much consistency or a lack of experience in songwriting), none of them sets the album back at all. Each is independently solid, each depends on the last for energy. While singing in “Time Slips Away” or reducing to piano and vocals in “When You Close Your Eyes,” he runs the risk of being too cheesy for even a folk record to support him. Yet, the songs never feel overtly attention-seeking. We’re not listening to “Walking in Memphis” or some other such hokeyness. We’re hearing Squires and his abandoned memories. We’re in Eastern NC with a huge backyard or a spacious car. We’re in a simple, easygoing conversation with a friend at the bar or at dinner. We’re recanting memories of old times with an eye on what it all means. We’re sleeping on the couch with a flickering TV, our significant others telling us to go to bed. We’re overhearing our parents fight. We’re there when all of his characters learn their fate, but we control our own destinies.

What resides in darkness is often the bane of songwriting. A Place to Hide is exactly that: an album that focuses on those dark areas where no one can hear our discontent. It’s a study in cautious observation. The album can sometimes sound too pernicious to those involved, but Squires means no harm. He only means to provide the listener with quandaries. What happens when love is not enough? What happens when you can’t protect yourself? You hide. You lash out and learn from your mistakes. This is a learning record. Perhaps that is why cataloguing melancholy has been so vital. When the melancholy isn’t yours, you learn how to hide from it. Squires images are provincially simple, but important nonetheless. It’s that they are defined that makes A Place to Hide so relevant.

I’m going to make up some statistics on the Cloud Nothings’ Attack On Memory in an attempt to downplay what you’ll read about it. Their efficiency rate on this record is around 78.3/min, their +/- is +7.5 and they are 17% darker in the paint this record than the the last one. All of this number crunching is to say that this record is a little different from the last one. It’s an “aural assault of the heart” according to Time, so it has to be different from the frivolous-sounding self-titled jam. Only, it really isn’t. In fact, I’m contending that this record is essentially a continuation of a slow-evolving sound. Of course, the first record is poppy and the second one is angry. I’m just not convinced that the songwriting is dramatic or that Cloud Nothings write aural assualts. These are punk rock songs, plain and simple, and they speak to the angry misbegotten soul like punk rock is supposed to.

The emphasis of Attack on Memory has shifted from bright-guitars and complaints to minor chords, dark lyrics and a sharper philosophical sense. If there’s anything to believe on this record, it’s the record itself. Obsessively bleak, the lyrics are cleverly pathetic pandering to the release of personal turmoil. In this, Cloud Nothings has not changed. Instead, they’ve molded their musicianship to match their hopeless facade. Moreover, the opener “No Future, No Past” is a basic building song that ends with a multiply-screamed title of the song. The lyrics, en total, are: “Give up./ Come to./ No Hope./ We’re through. No Future/ No past.” The repeated commands are a warning shot for what becomes a recurring theme: life sucks, bros. Like, it totally sucks. Having belabored this point before, the capitulated methodologies might be boring if not for the presentation changes throughout Attack. “Wasted Days” is a haunting force on the record. The rumble of low-end, the clean guitar, and the motion of the drums are the most combined effort this band has seen. “I thought I would be more than this,” is repeated until 3 minutes in when the band breaks into a noise-infused build set to overly simple drum-and-bass. The big, angry ending isn’t so much endearing as it is a shock to the listener’s system before the bounce-back. “Wasted Days” is effective because it breaks down the usual balance between Cloud Nothings and the audience. The 9-minute jam basically breaks the third wall.

The gentler, more status quo tracks that follow are some of the best on the album. “Fall In” is a pop-gem, “Stay Useless” is a short complaint-rock hit. While the initial reviews are praising the melancholy of Attack on Memory, Cloud Nothings are still churning out simple point-of-phrase pop-punk gems: “I need time to stop moving/ I need time to stay useless” could have been written in 1997, but it feels perfectly in place for the winter of 2012. The best part is how each song is catchy but not overly anthem-like or penetrating. Even the repeated phrases feel like lessons in restraint rather than slogans. Honestly, I don’t know how or why these songs are so usefully catchy– perhaps their personal slant and non-political phrasings? Either way, the album progresses to a harder and louder sound without an eye roll, without a misplaced word or phrase, but with the listener in tow.

“No Sentiment” earmarks that louder, cymbal-bashing sound the record will be lauded for, but the chorus’ straightforward pounding beat and throaty vocal creates an odd crescendo. Attack is oddly self-aware as it ends: the guitars feed back, the drums hit harder, but the message remains clear. There is still no hope, no light. CN are in the next room listening to loud records on their headphones, their parents worried, but it’s cool. Brooding is a defense mechanism just like everything. Meaninglessness is not the opposite of meaning: “No one knows our plans for us./ We won’t last long.” It’s not as simple as “ashes to ashes” but it’s still an methodical understanding of tough times. CN will still come to the dinner table with their nice face on, their snarl and sad-sackery hidden for an hour.

“Cut You” ends a marvelous record the way we all expected. It’s a jealous, bitter post-break-up jam and it rules. This was the problem all along– one so simply stated but tough to define. “Do you feel safe with him?/ Did he give you everything?/ Is he gonna work out?” Questions. “I miss you ’cause I like damage. I need something I can hurt.” Answers. No, these aren’t the answers to the specific questions set forth, but it’s unclear if anyone really wants to know those answers. As the album ends, we notice how fragile this album really is; how damaged the psychological make-up of the songwriter can really be. If their early work is really all that different, how come I am reminded of the questions they asked in the past? How come I feel like this latest work is an extension of how nothing has made sense despite the clever exterior?