My Listening Hours: The Spring's Rest

(If you missed yesterday’s posts, you may want to start here, then here.)

The Shins: Wincing the Night Away
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: Some Loud Thunder
Arcade Fire: Neon Bible
These were the three heavily anticipated albums of the season, wouldn’t you say? (Maybe some of you would include Modest Mouse in there too… not me.) They all more or less fared the same as far as I was concerned, each succeeding and failing in their own ways. I gave CYHSY and Arcade Fire their own lengthy reviews, so won’t really go into more depth again. I’d meant to write a longer piece on the Shins too but just never got around to it. You might say that sums up my feelings on the record. It’s good but I don’t really know that it’s worth talking about. It didn’t help that I bought Peter Bjorn & John on the same day and that album pretty much shoved everything else out its way.

As with Arcade Fire and CYHSY, I kept listening to Wincing, trying to force myself to love it, or at least give it the fairest shake I could considering how much I liked their earlier stuff. At worst, there are tracks that are severe misfires. “Sea Legs” sounds like Morrissey trying to cash in on early-’90s trip hop—that first impression could be overcome, except that the band then carries the song out with two minutes of the limpest jam I’ve heard in years. Other songs, like “Phantom Limb” or “Girl Sailor,” are solid Shins songs; they’re easily as good as the best stuff from their other records—my complaint is that they’re not better. On the flipside of that coin, I do enjoy most of the Wincing songs whenever they come up on shuffle, now that the burden of expectation has worn off. As time goes by I think I’ll come to appreciate these songs the same way I appreciate many of their others, as a testament to James Mercer’s craft, even if I can’t ever claim to love the album as a whole.

Mates of State: Bring it Back
This album found its way to our stereo via a co-worker of my wife’s who burned a copy for us. It didn’t stick with us right away—my wife thought the woman’s voice was a little too Plain-Jane, a common malady for indie rock girls; I didn’t mind it so much, but whenever the husband-and-wife duo sang the same notes together I thought, in the immortal words of Descarte—or was it Stalin?—“gettin’ a little pitchy, dawg.” Nevertheless, like the Little Ones, the melodies and harmonies sunk their teeth in and I kept listening. One thing that really struck me was how ballsy their opener was. It was so much longer than the rest of the album’s tracks, and it had this really sort of epic outro (“I’m tired of singing,” over and over). I appreciated that they’d open with that when the rest of the record is pretty immediate pop tunes (my current favorite is “So Many Ways”). When I started writing this post and I went over to Amazon to get the cover art, however, I discovered that our copy of the album was burned in reverse order! So it was the closer, it wasn’t as ballsy as I thought, and now I’m not sure how I feel about the record. I plan to try it over again. Last year I had the Zutons’ first album and thought it was really inconsistent and only good in spots, until I discovered that it was out of sequence on my iTunes and when I ordered it correctly the whole album got way better. Here’s hoping for the Mates.

Beirut: Gulag Orkestra
Again, had to turn the Cynic Switch off before I could pull the trigger on this album. Too many people were a) heaping ridiculous love on them and b) comparing them to Neutral Milk Hotel. The combination set off major warning sirens in my head—false idols, and all that. Turns out that Beirut is good but hardly deserving the amount of hype given or the NMH comparisons. There are some bright spots on this album—I really love “Scenic World” and “After the Curtain”—but the whole thing gets a little too overblown after a while. The singer’s delivery doesn’t really vary that much, and by the end of the album the whole thing starts to feel really bloated. But he’s got his own vision happening, and he’s young. He’s got a lot of potential and I’ll be keeping an eye on what he does next. I think if he can rein himself in a little he might produce a really focused, possibly perfect album. Or, he could make a sprawling mess. Time—or the record he put out this year that I haven't heard yet—will tell.

Lou Reed: Transformer
My sole blind spot purchase of the year so far. Last year I was acquiring older albums at a far greater rate than this year—not coincidentally, I had a job that placed me in the library on a regular basis. Guess I need to skip over to the library if I want to continue filling in my gaps. Transformer’s been on my list for a while now, ever since I bought the third VU album and fell in love with Reed all over again, plus the local radio station had put “Satellite of Love” in rotation and it was making me so happy every time it came on. I like most of this record but I have to admit I still haven’t really sat down seriously with it. It’s one of those albums where I realize that I know probably half the songs (“Perfect Day” and “Wild Side,” among others, are both here too), just never listened to them in the original sequence before. Truth be told, I really just listen to “Satellite of Love” over and over again. Ba ba ba.

Tomorrow, a look forward to the summer releases keeping me hot with anticipation.

Comments

[Richard]

Hey, I've been poking about here since you commented over at my blog. Good stuff.

Funny, for me, none of those big three are ones I anticipated at all! (Of those three, I'm most likely to get the Arcade Fire.) And while I love Modest Mouse, I'm not feeling a big push to buy their new cd either... Now, Panda Bear on the other hand...

[pgwp]

I was harsh on Panda Bear when I first heard him on a couple mp3 blogs, but something about it has been pulling me back to it. I've haven't pulled the trigger yet but I may pick up that record.