Holy moly this was great. It's hard for me to adjust to the alt-rock thing, but even so after a few tracks I was so hooked into it. I had no idea the lyrics would be so goofy and out-there, they're by far the best I've heard outside of rap, and so appropriately delivered. Pretty much all the songs are on point, but beyond its components it's an astonishingly well put-together album. Each track is singularly evocative of a certain thing, but they're arranged in such a way that they all feel like facets of a bigger subliminal thing.
Choice cuts: Unfair, Range Life, Heaven Is a Truck
Ooh, these pre-album days are tough. The first two songs are so rich in smokestack noir imagery and atmosphere that my hopes were way up, then there's a run of how-on-earth-did-they-let-such-similar-songs-play-back-to-back cuts, then there's this banging almost experimental rendition of Cry Me a River whose orchestration I'm pretty sure the 007 theme song ripped off, and then it's hit and miss after that, with the highlight being this gorgeous city symphony slash love ballad Manhattan that has the tightest internal rhymes and a latent grotesque side that comes out in lyrics like "we'll go to coney and eat baloney on a roll" and "the city's clamor can never spoil the dreams of a boy and goil." Needless to say the singing is gorgeous throughout and the overriding aesthetic is always gonna be up my alley.
Choice cuts: I Thought About You, Cry Me a River, Manhattan
No comments:
Post a Comment