Why John Darnielle is one of the best singers in rock music today.

I know, it sounds ridiculous, like one of those deliberately contrary things that people say on music blogs the world over to try to differentiate themselves from the pack. But bear with me here: first up, I don’t mean “in all music ever”. I’m deliberately keeping my argument to a pretty narrow focus here, on the rock & pop world (inadequate though we might deem those descriptions to be). I’m not well-versed enough in the other myriad forms of vocal-dependent music to comment on them. Secondly, I don’t mean to say that John Darnielle has a great singing voice. That’s clearly not the case. Sure, he hits the notes okay, has a pretty good range, but tonally his voice is nasal and over-strident. I don’t think anyone’s denying that.

But Billie Holiday didn’t have a great voice, either. And we all know she was one the greatest singers of the 20^th century (and that’s not just received wisdom: go check out some of her Columbia recordings from the ’30s and ’40s). Sometimes what a person does with his or her voice can surpass any limitations within that voice. John Darnielle is one of those people.

This is thanks in no small part to his much-talked about move from bedroom & boombox recording to working within an actual, properly kitted out studio. As has been mentioned by many people in the past, the microphone can be as much of a musical instrument as a guitar or a drum or anything else. When he was recording his songs straight onto cassette John Darnielle’s singing was pretty uniform: just about every song was belted out at maximum force, perhaps out of necessity: subtleties are easily lost among the tape hiss.

Since his move to the studio with Tallahassee, though, he seems to have been revelling in the possibilities granted by the use of a proper microphone. His lyrics had always been exceptional: now he tempers his singing to suit those lyrics. This is demonstrated best on the Mountain Goats’ great, great album from 2005, the Sunset Tree. His voice shifts through all the gears, just as the songs on the album display all human emotions: angry and defiant on “This Year”; desperate and urgent on “Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod?”; quiet and resigned on “Pale Green Things”. The album carries a massive emotional weight, and that’s in no small part to the attention to detail John Darnielle puts into his singing throughout.

There aren’t many people out there in the rock & pop world at the moment who are doing what he’s doing with his voice. Next time you listen to your favourite contemporary rock album, just pay attention to the singer. How much is he or she doing, vocally? Is there any variety between songs? Probably not, I’d bet. That’s why John Darnielle is one of the best singers in rock music today.

Women - s/t

Let's get the influence namechecking out of the way. Sonic Youth. Velvet Underground. Swans. Deerhoof. Liars. Can. This Heat. Should I continue? Somehow, WOMEN frontman Pat Flegel did when I chatted with him, briefly and a bit awestruck, after his band played in Regina recently. The list of bands spooled off with such ease it was like they were always there, waiting for the slightest tug before unraveling fully and wonderfully.

But of course this is a ridiculous thing to suggest, because every band and every artist has this list waiting at the forefront of their mind any time they are discussing their music. It's whether they choose to deny its existence or embrace it that makes the difference. Calgary's WOMEN embrace it, and good for them, because it means they constantly strive to prove that they are not those bands, they are their own.

Throughout WOMEN's brief half-hour self-titled debut, the songs sheathed in sustained bursts of noise, drones, crashing and clattering loops and general textural fuckery. Tape hiss is everywhere, the songs are drenched in reverb and odd tonal colours flash in and out when you least expect it - "Lawncare" gradually drops its yearning guitar line and, eventually, its rhythm as cascades of noise fade in, leading to the gorgeous textural wash of "Woodbine." "January 8th" strikes atonal, droning chords and builds its speed to a nervous, lashing energy, a pulsing Tesla coil of rock. Under all of these elements, however mathy or noisy, are the sinews and bones of really great tunes that borrow not from the above underground icons but instead find kinship in the pop music of the 50s and 60s.

Which brings us to "Black Rice." The centrepiece of the album, this track has already won a ton of acclaim, yet I can't help but add myself to the chorus. I've been listening to this record nonstop for the last few hours and so much of "Black Rice" is utterly stunning. The way the rhythm section dances neatly around those jangling, echoing guitar chords after the first chorus, the glockenspiel, the laissez-faire vocal melody that breaks into an aching falsetto. So much about it is wonderful, and that it's sandwiched between a gorgeous sheet of pink noise and a truly awesome instrumental piece constructed from feedback and ever-spiraling guitar lines makes it stand out further. It's a song so good you'd swear you heard it before, but shockingly none of the bands that have influenced WOMEN managed to write it. It belongs to WOMEN and it is wonderful.

There's an interview with Stephen Merritt that came to my mind while writing this review. Merritt comes off as someone who plays music but, for some odd reason, doesn't actually like it - he's hypercritical and sardonic and outright mean. It makes for an entertaining read, and I'm certainly a fan of Merritt's music, but it seems like such a bizarre attitude to take into the act of creation. The conversation I had with Flegel a while back gave me the opposite feeling. Here's someone - here's a band - who not only make music but listen to a lot of it, who like a lot of it, and the music they make reflects that. It's because WOMEN love music that they want to do something new and interesting, and that passion makes their album succeed marvelously.

Music by people who like music for people who like music. Imagine that!

WOMEN - s/t is available now on CD and LP from Flemish Eye Records, a Calgary micro-label that is also home to The Cape May and Chad VanGaalen. It is also available on iTunes.

The Evangelist, by Robert Forster

We didn’t know how important he was to us, until he was gone.

In Australia, not so long ago, it was accepted practice to make fun of Grant McLennan, or at least to not take him seriously. Before we all re-discovered the Go-Betweens, before the nation embraced them and recognised them as one of the best bands the country has ever produced, it tended to be a reflex action to dismiss McLennan. His song-writing partner Robert Forster got a bit more respect: even if you didn’t like his music, he was at least interesting to look at, a kind of Australian Bryan Ferry. McLennan just looked like a bloke. Anyone can be a bloke. Blokes with guitars make music that nobody really wants to listen to. Nobody paid much attention to McLennan’s post Go-Betweens solo releases.

Then Forster and McLennan revived the Go-Betweens, the band’s albums were all reissued in fancy new packages, some French magazine named them the best band in the history of pop or something, and Australia fell in love with the band almost everyone had forgotten about. Then, even more amazingly, brand new Go-Betweens albums started to appear, everyone who was suddenly an expert got over their initial “But where’s Lindy Morrison?” snobbery, Forster and McLennan took their show on the road, and we all lived happily ever after.

Well, not quite, because this isn’t a fairy story, it’s real life. In 2006, at the age of only 47, Grant McLennan died of a heart attack in his sleep one afternoon. The news was unbelievable. We didn’t know how important he was to us, until he was gone.

Robert Forster must have known, though. Since he and McLennan reformed the Go-Betweens there had been three new albums by the band, and it’s probably safe to assume that the Evangelist, or something in its place, would have been the fourth. Instead, the tragedy of McLennan’s death has forced the album to become Forster’s fifth solo album.

It’s impossible to escape the memory of McLennan when listening to the Evangelist – not that Forster shies away from that memory, with the opening page of the booklet explaining in detail precisely which lyrics on the album were written by McLennan. We can only imagine what Forster must have felt when singing those lyrics, but there’s a palpable heaviness, a weariness, to the first three songs on the album in particular. Not, I hasten to add, that the music sounds tired: just older, sadder, and wiser – the kind of wisdom that can only come through pain. Listening to these performances almost feels like an intrusion, especially on “Demon Days”, the second song on the album and the first of those partly written by McLennan. Forster sounds withdrawn and half-broken, as if it’s almost unbearable for him to sing the song – it very well may be, especially given the hauntingly prescient chorus McLennan wrote: “Something’s not right/Something’s gone wrong”. Very wrong indeed; it surely wasn’t meant to be this way. It’s the single most powerful performance on the album, but also the most uncomfortable: there’s something too private here.

After “Demon Days” the next song, “Pandanus”, arrives like a balm, telling a simple story of the healing powers of nature: the song starts “It was one day at five thirty – I went down to the beach”, and concludes “The sun has gone and it’s taken your troubles somewhere, somewhere”. We can’t know who Forster’s addressing when, on the second-last line in the song, he suddenly changes the personal pronoun from “I” to “you”, but it might as well be the listener.

Because of the tragic events foreshadowing its creation, it’s impossible to approach the Evangelist objectively, and it’s true that the fact of Grant McLennan’s death lends much of the album an emotional weight that it perhaps wouldn’t otherwise have. But it would be misleading, too, for me to suggest that sadness and tragedy dominate the album. Indeed, many of the songs have nothing whatsoever to do with McLennan; and not all of those that do involve him, or the memory of him, are sad: one of the album’s highlights comes just after the half-way point: “Let Your Light In, Babe” charges along, driven hard and fast by Glenn Thompson’s drums, as Forster sings another simple story that has something of the quality of a Biblical allegory – and not just because of the prominence of a church in the narrative – of a man (presumably) offering his house to a woman and child “new to this town”. The chorus, written by McLennan, urges: “Let your light in, babe, and don’t you be afraid.”

The second-last track on the album, “It Ain’t Easy”, has a very similar melody and feel to “Let Your Light in, Babe”, and also boasts a chorus by McLennan – but lyrically it’s a tougher song. The chorus states “It ain’t easy, when that love is blue, the love is blue”. More significant, though, are the opening words – Forster’s words:

“And a river ran and a train ran and a dream ran through everything
that he did
There was melody, there was harmony, there was sweet Sherrie,
But it was melody he loved most of all.”

We can’t, of course, impose our own meaning upon somebody else’s work and claim it to be the absolute truth. But these three lines are as good a memorial of Grant McLennan, the man who gave us songs such as “Cattle and Cane”, “Bachelor Kisses”, and “Bye Bye Pride” as one could hope for. For fans of the Go-Betweens, new and old, the pain of McLennan’s tragic loss still hasn’t gone; perhaps it never will, but with the Evangelist Robert Forster has at least given us something beautiful to hold on to. It might be easier for us to forget some things in life, but sometimes it’s better to remember, and to mourn, and to celebrate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCbyByY-A6w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_nn90p-tIg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpRFuADsdxc

Villette Sonique Festival
Samedi 7 Juin

Shellac
Mission of Burma
Melt Banana
Bottomless Pit

Retrospective live reviews can be infuriating or completely pointless from the perspective of a reader who wasn’t at the show in question. However, in this circumstance this article is a tribute and a recommendation to four bands that have been playing out live for a long time and are still worth travelling a fair distance to see. In this particular instance, Chicago-based super trio Shellac were given a day to pick the line-up for an evening show at the Villette Sonique Festival in Paris, France. They chose reformed Boston-based legends Mission of Burma, the incredible Melt Banana from Tokyo and the relative newcomers Bottomless Pit, also from Chicago. With a bill like this, you can understand why a trip across the channel into France was a small price to pay. In reality, it wasn’t any kind of price to pay at all because Paris is downright wonderful. Our hosts and comrades in France put on a truly amazing show and it was a refreshing change to the sparsely attended, inevitably aggressive shows we seem to foster here in the UK. After this experience, I confess I’m checking for shows in Paris rather than London because the difference in travel time is negligible.

First but by no means least to hit le Espace Charlie Parker’s stage are openers Bottomless Pit. There’s an inevitable sense of nervous expectation before seeing a group that you have personally expended no small amount of hyperbole on for the first time. Although all four members of the Pit are veterans of the indie rock community (Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen from Silkworm, Brian Orchard from .22 and Chris Manfrin of Seam) it’s never entirely certain whether a new band will live up to the memory of their former groups. Fortunately, it’s clear from the first notes that the Pit are an absolute master-class in restrained but highly kinetic rock. As good as last year’s impressive Hammer of the Gods sounded on vinyl, it seems timid in comparison to the band’s excellent live show. The sound in this arena sized venue is surprisingly accommodating and the band gives the impression of a well-drilled unit even after this short period of time. Here the songs sound less like New Order and more like the lovechild of mid-period Silkworm and latter-day Seam. A crucial difference between the former (an inevitable comparison considering the band shares two of the same songwriters) and the Pit is that whereas Silkworm were usually akin to a wrecking ball in the live environment, Midgett and Cohen’s new band is more like a surgically precise cutting laser. In particular, the interplay between Midgett’s baritone guitar and Andy Cohen’s telecaster is a lot more visible than on record. Fittingly, the material they showcase from the forthcoming Congress EP already shows signs of evolution and you’d be well advised to pre-order it from the Bottomless Pit site as a matter of urgency.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, up next are Melt Banana. By ridiculous, I mean ridiculously good. No slight to any of the other bands playing this evening but in the live arena, there are pitifully few groups that can hold a candle to the quartet from Tokyo. If Bottomless Pit are a surgical laser, Melt Banana are a laser cannon. Any sense of subtlety is abandoned in the face of a fusillade of hyperspace punk rock which at times reaches such an astounding velocity that it resembles a mesmerising wing of the techno movement. This is the first time I’ve seen the group in half a decade and in that time, they have grown in every direction simultaneously. Tonight, it seems that Melt Banana have discarded obvious provocation and settled into a private niche which can only be reached by knowing that there is a sense of profound glory in blowing the minds of practically everyone who ever sees you live for over fifteen years. Guitarist Ichirou Agata could more accurately be classified as an effects player who happens to have a guitar strapped to his convulsing frame. If there is any justice, Yasuko Onuki will be permanently regarded as one of the most compelling front-women in the history of rock music. Her vocals are a combination of a deafening shriek and an urgent speak-sing which may well have its roots in the early hardcore movement. As with all Melt Banana shows, there is a point whereby you start to believe that you have actually taken leave of your senses and the whole of creation is about to be revealed as some private joke at your expense. There is a guitarist onstage wearing a surgical mask which is billowing in and out like some facially mounted artificial lung, a petit lady who appears to be creating low end by literally wringing sound from a bass guitar, a sleeveless automaton at the drums who has only one facial expression and a beautiful pixie dancing to the wings of the stage shrieking like a patient on day release from a mental institute. You can’t bring yourself to look away because where would you go? What would happen if you stepped outside at this point? Would the world even be there to welcome you back to normality? Purists might well scoff but I actually thought Cell-Scape and Bambi’s Dilemma were the best records of the band’s discography. These albums represented not so much a step sideways as a momentary shift horizontally to enable the band to plunge headlong into a new gear which is faster and more fluid than before. The next time anyone lauds their laughable Clash re-runs as an example of Punk Rock, please introduce them to Melt Banana with my blessing. They are a band you desperately need to see at some point with the added bonus that they are currently operating at the absolute height of their powers.

Mission of Burma are left with a mountain to climb after the inspirationally superb Melt Banana. For all of a minute, it does seem like this might be an off night for the reunited heroes of artfully broken post-Punk. However, as soon as the band acclimates to the nuances of the venue, they instantly establish that invigorating sense of tension which has always arisen whenever these three musicians share a stage together. Truth be told, I’m not a massive fan of their most recent output but this evening makes me want to revisit these albums anew. Another truth is that the Mission of Burma onstage tonight is every bit as effective as they were in the early eighties. If anything, the band seemed to grow in stature during their prolonged hiatus. Tonight is a magical tug of war between three gifted songwriters, their combined output lovingly warped by offstage soundman Bob Weston, on loan from Shellac to replace original tape manipulator Martin Swope. Inevitably, the older songs are a nostalgia overload for everyone in the building. In particular, ‘Trem Two’ and ‘Micah’ are absolutely glorious to behold, reminding us that Burma were just as capable of tugging the heart-strings as they were of providing a visible intersection between post-modern art and punk rock. This is probably the best time to be introduced to Burma if you aren’t already familiar with the music because their early discography has been reissued, they are currently touring and another new album is imminent. If they pass near your town, it’s definitely worth going to see them.

For me the biggest surprise of the evening was that I ended up seeing by far my favourite Shellac show. Although I have seen the band on several occasions over the years, the last couple of times were marred by rented gear or poor audience attitude and I’d forgotten what an incredible live act they could be. Tonight they set up in a single line abreast with Todd Trainer centre stage and it was obvious from the off that we are in for a treat. With Shellac, the lack of a consistent set-list and a penchant for prolonged audience interaction can ruin the momentum of the show but on this evening, we are spoiled by back to back classics and little in the way of distraction. With the sound in their favour and a jubilant Parisian audience, Shellac are on absolutely scintillating form and for the first time in recent history is seems as though they are completely aware of it. They seem both confident and absolutely joyful to be playing at such an event, which is absolutely appropriate considering how happy we are to see them in such a setting. The obvious focal point of Shellac is that man Todd Trainer, with his frozen explosion of unkempt black hair held back by a single headband and what might as well be logs in his hands. Tonight was the first time that it occurred to me that his unbelievable power stems from the fact that every single one of his strokes rises all the way up over his head, the sticks meeting his shoulder blades before returning to the drums with improbable force. Although the older material is received with good cheer, songs from the better half of Excellent Italian Greyhound are definitely the most impressive overall. In particular, ‘Steady as She Goes’ is a contender for the best Shellac song ever committed to magnetic tape. In the live arena, the song becomes a hard-chooglin’, gut-bustin’ ox of a song. Likewise, ‘Be Prepared’ has all the mischievous magic which make Shellac such a unique group, as does ‘The End of Radio’ which tonight has Steve Albini conduct the introduction in surprisingly fluent French. The ever mesmerising ‘Wingwalker’ is unfurled in all its glory and for a moment we stand with our hands outstretched as Bob Weston encourages us to “be the plane”. As the set draws to a close, I realise that I’m standing with some of my friends from around Europe and we’re in a thicket of beautiful young Parisian women, hips swinging and butts shaking to Todd Trainer’s beats. It probably doesn’t get much better than this and it seems like a fitting conclusion to an incredible evening. Trainer doesn’t want to come off stage so the band dismantles his drumkit piece by piece until all he has is a lone snare drum, upon which he beats a triumphant closing tattoo. Absolutely fucking marvellous. Merci Shellac. Come back as soon as possible.

Tommy Dski

Liveblogging: Sloan -'Parallel Play'

1) "Believe In Me" (Patrick) - This song makes about three different attempts at starting before it gets off the ground but once it does it's probably one of the strongest Patrick songs in a while. A good jangle is always nicely offset by a rippin' solo. After that intro it doesn't really waste any time either.

2) "Cheap Champagne" (Jay) - Oh hey speaking of not wasting time, this song caught me off guard. I love when Jay lets an instrument other than the guitar lead his song, and while the acoustic guitars in this one are nice, they're really playing sidemen to the piano, which matches the hook nicely. "Ba-ba-dups" are a little intrusive.

3) "All I Am Is All You're Not" (Chris) - Okay now it's starting to get a little grating that there are no separations between tracks but there are no real transitions either, so it's just sharp and very jarring. Chris sounds a little more nasal on this one than I'd like and the chorus doesn't bite as hard as I'd like it to, but it exudes this air of low-key menace that kind of reminds me of the Stones.

4) "Emergency 911" (Andrew) - HOLY SHIT SO BADASS, GOD DAMN I LOVE ANDREW. And Andrew loves the Stooges. Such a great, badass, bluesy punk tune he's got here. Also, I don't think I heard any handclaps on "Believe In Me" but this is the third song in a row with 'em for sure.

5) "Burn For It" (Patrick) - Woah, this one takes me back. It sounds a lot like something that would have been on Smeared if it were a little more scuzzy. Not the strongest song on the record but oh wait that's some glam piano bashin' which is my number one weakness. Okay it gets a pass. You're lucky this time, Patrick.

6) "Witches Wand" (Jay) - Oh man, it's Belle & Sebastian. You know, the thing about Sloan - wait did he just say "facing the dragon" this song is totally about drugs - the thing about Sloan is that even if I say "Oh this sounds like Belle & Sebastian," it doesn't, really. It sounds like Sloan. This song hits on the AM radio rock sort of sound that B&S were playing with on The Life Pursuit but they've still got that dude-harmony, glasses-and-scarf, wicked-lightshow, instrument-switching rock'n'roll Sloan aesthetic behind it that tells you that what you're listening to is and will always inarguably be a Sloan song, no questions asked. So yeah, I like this song.

7) "The Dogs" (Andrew) - Andrew's songs on the last record threw me for a loop because he seemed to be going for this really awesome 70's psychedelic vibe, and that's what he's going for here, I think. It doesn't have the propulsion of "Golden Eyes" but it's a really neat, woozy sort of tune. It's also the longest on the album - at four minutes. What were you expecting? It's Sloan! The keyboards in the background are really nice - this is a big spacey rock song, definite hood-of-the-car-lookin'-at-the-stars-after-makin'-out-with-your-high-school-sweetie music.

8) "Living The Dream" (Chris) - What the hell? What's going on with the percussion in this song? It's kind of annoying but when the tambourine kicks in it's rad. Once again Chris has not turned in his strongest material on this record but the chorus-like bit has a really great hook and this is a super-upbeat song about total disillusionment. "I don't dream for a living / I'm just living the dream" is a nice line.

9) "The Other Side" (Patrick) - Another track that would be right at home on Smeared, except that the guitars in it sound EFFING HUGE. Which is great, of course. Also, this is another strong Patrick song. Three in a row! Good show, Patrick. I bet this one is really great live.

10) "Down In The Basement" (Andrew) - There better be a fucking harmonica solo in this song or I will be declaring it a missed opportunity. It's a really great rollicking electric blues song. Probably getting a lot of Dylan comparisons but there's nothing wrong with that, especially since these are hands down the strongest lyrics on the record. NO BLUES HARMONICA = MISSED OPPORTUNITY.

11) "If I Could Change Your Mind" (Jay) - Jay has been listening to some serious yacht rock I guess. Those "Oooohs," so smooth! Yeah this definitely has Michael MacDonald written all over it. Not a bad thing but probably Jay's weakest song on this record. There's an old adage, though, that goes, "A weak Sloan song is a hundred bands' strongest songs." That applies here.

12) "I'm Not A Kid Anymore" (Chris) - Chris' strongest entry this record. The bridge in the middle of the song has some great harmonies and rad, sloppy power chords, which is the second time Sloan has gone that route this record. The old "just keep the acoustic guitar in the quiet bits" is great. Okay Chris, you've redeemed yourself. And by that I mean I never stopped loving you. Please be my dad.

13) "Too Many" (Andrew) - Andrew knows how to open a song - "Let's get one thing straight!" His hippie streak continues in this song but it's forgivable because it's catchy, though its placement as the last song is an absolutely awful idea. It's a little too low-key for a closing song. Actually I just talked to Tommy and he called it "reggae" which explains it. I hate reggae so much. SO MUCH

So that's the new Sloan record! Overall I think it's pretty good. Not their best, and probably not a great entry point for anyone unless they are exclusively interested in the works of Patrick and Andrew.

Opeth- Watershed first-listen impressions

I'm a pretty big Opeth dork so when I heard the new album had leaked, of course I immediately leapt to my BitTorrent client and grabbed a copy. Here are my initial impressions, typed live as I listened to the album for the first time. I have no idea whether this will be useful as a "should you buy this album" type of review but hopefully it will at least be entertaining.

01- Coil: Oh hey, more proggy acoustic stuff. This is pretty but the part of Opeth's stuff that always bores me. Nice faux-horns and female vocals, hey this kind of ended abruptly, I wonder what's comin-

02- Heir Apparent: OH HOLY FUCKING JESUS SHIT WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!?!?!?!?1!!. Possibly the most brutal thing they've done, ever. Somebody's been listening to their Deathspell Omega between albums! Nice interludes, this thing is gonna be murder to learn how to play. Holy god the palm muting. Opeth win the award for Longest Single Riff Ever at about 6:30 in.

03- The Lotus Eater: Cool vocal harmonies at the opening. This one reminds me of their My Arms, Your Hearse-era stuff. Main riff is almost more indie-rock than metal in its timing. Man, have they ever been this dissonant before? OH WHAT THE FUCK KEYBOARD SOLO holy crap guys it's interesting melodically but just SILLY timbre-wise. Stick to the guitars, the last chunk of this song fucking kills.

04- Burden: Wow this is proggy as hell. Two albums in, I continue to dislike the keyboardist. This track is like a slowed down, amped up Dungen tune. OH SHIIIIIIT IT'S BLOOZ SOLO TYMEEEEE!!! Nice detuning effect at the end.

05- Porcelain Heart: Judging by the title this will be another proggy track. Am I right? No. Opeth 1, me 0. The whole song is basically "The Grand Conjuration" only without the half-assed main riff from that song. An improvement!

06- Hessian Peel- Longest song on the record. Oh good, more acoustic guitar + blues solos + melodic vocals. Thank god that melody line is at least a LITTLE skewed or this would bore me to tears. Harmony guitar leads? Now it sounds like Skynyrd at a ren-faire. Oh man that synth-string patch sounds SO FAKE. Come on dudes I know you can afford to hire actual session musicians in the studio instead of faking it with keyboards. Pretty crazy-ass guitar picking- is he sweeping or just fingerpicking really fast? Transition to the heavy part halfway through feels forced, but the bridge immediately afterward is FANTASTIC. When Opeth do these really long riffs (6:45-7:20) they sound like an autistic Metallica. Whoever made the decision to give their keyboard player more of a role in this record needs to be taken out back and shaken until concussed. One criticism of Opeth I've heard a lot is that their switch between sections with very little in the way of transitions, leaving their songs sounding cold and arbitrarily structured. This track is definitely guilty of that offense.

07- Hex Omega: With a name like that this'd better be fucking GOOD. Opens as a transition from "Hessian Peel" which is ironic considering how disjointed that track was. DEAR OPETH: FLUTE PATCHES HAVE NO BUSINESS ANYWHERE NEAR A METAL SONG NO MATTER HOW "PROGRESSIVE" YOU ARE. Nice use of restraint in the quiet sections- it's really rare to hear any kind of open space in an Opeth track and it's quite refreshing. Almost sounds like something out of a June of 44 record. "Chorus" riff and the outro both sound like they'd be really fun to play, but leave me cold.

Tentative conclusions: It's really great to see Opeth continue to stretch themselves and try (relatively) new things. "Heir Apparent" is far and away the heaviest thing they have ever written. Absolute must-listen, even if you don't like the other Opeth you've heard. Totally brutal in parts, and I can even overlook the faux-flutes halfway in. It's a pity the rest of the record didn't match up. The goddamned keyboardist needs to go- he only occasionally adds to the songs and more often than not clutters them up with unnecessary stage-dressing. The synthesizer emulations of actual instruments (horns, strings, THOSE FUCKING FLUTES) are incredibly grating and absolutely have to go. You can get away with that stuff live, but I want to hear the real deal on a studio record.

Basically if I were in charge of Opeth, I would tell them to do more "Heir Apparent" and less "Hessian Peel." I also feel like their "best of both worlds approach" to mixing the metal and the acoustic stuff on albums is hurting them overall- it works within a song if it's well-structured, but too often they just bounce back and forth with no real reason guiding the changes. Also, and this is just my horribly biased and unprofessional opinion, I don't like quiet, pretty Opeth as much as I like loud, demonic Opeth. This record is worth listening to if only for the terrific (in the old sense of the word, ie "terrifying") onslaught of "Heir Apparent," but it still doesn't top My Arms or Blackwater Park in terms of the band's best work.

First impressions of Lie Down in the Light

After the glories of Superwolf and the Letting Go, last two “proper” Bonnie “Prince” Billy albums, expectations for Will Oldham’s work must be higher than they’ve ever been. For ardent admirers of those two albums, Lie Down in the Light might seem like a disappointment; but for those of us who can’t fathom why Oldham’s classic Ease Down the Road, from 2001, is so generally underrated, Lie Down in the Light comes also as a welcome return to that album’s sounds.

Of course, there’s a danger for any artist who returns to old, familiar styles: after being relatively easily pigeon-holed within the “alt.country” scene for just about all of his career, Oldham’s increasingly radical stylistic adventures over the last two albums seemed to indicate that he’d decided to move on; as such it’s impossible not to think of Lie Down in the Light’s return to older sounds as at least a little bit regressive. Furthermore, ever since the generally poorly regarded Bonnie “Prince” Billy Sings Greatest Palace Songs, fans of Will Oldham could be forgiven for greeting the news that he’s returned to his country routes with more than a little alarm.

Well, if (like most people) you didn’t take to Greatest Palace Songs (for the record, I don’t mind it), then don’t worry: the country of Lie Down in the Light is not the pass at a semi-gloss Nashville sound that Oldham made with that album, but rather a much warmer twangier, more pining, and more emotionally genuine sound. There’s no need to try second-guessing Oldham’s motives for this album as there was for Greatest Palace Songs. As I’m writing this I’m listening to Lie Down in the Light for the third time, and it’s getting richer and stronger and better with each listen.

The first draft of this review was just a blow-by-blow account of each of the album’s twelve tracks, but to be honest I got bored just writing it so I can’t imagine how dull it would be to have to read it. So instead here’s a few personal highlights from the album: the stirring, even joyful first three tracks (with lyrics in the lyric sheet – hand-written – capitalising important words or lines); Dennis Solee’s beautiful clarinet playing on track four, “For Every Field There’s a Mole” – reminiscent of certain “chamber jazz” recordings of the 30s and 40s, and if I’m not mistaken the first time the clarinet has appeared on an Oldham album, at least as a solo instrument; the beautiful backing vocals throughout the album, sometimes by Ashley Webber (the latest in a long line of excellent female vocalists Oldham has employed), and sometimes by a mini-choir of Rod Fletcher, John Ryles, and Marty Slayton, culminating in the simply stunning (and brief) close to the album, where all the voices join together. Indeed, Oldham’s own singing is universally strong here – we’re a long way away from the Palace days, when it was generally accepted wisdom that Oldham couldn’t really sing.

One aspect of Lie Down in the Light that must be mentioned is the lyrics. The idea of “Oldham returns to his old ways” is spoiled rather by a glance across the lyric sheet: if musically this album most strongly resembles Ease Down the Road, lyrically it couldn’t be more different. That album was a beautiful, pastoral affair – until the listener stopped smiling and clued into the brutal lyrics, with their tales of mass-murder and suicide, and the persistent theme of adultery. Lie Down in the Light finds Oldham in a disconcertingly cheerful frame of mind. It’s like listening to the music of Ease Down the Road accompanied by the lyrics it was always meant to have. This inevitably makes the album a less complex, unsettling affair – but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. If I told you Will Oldham had written the lyric “For every man who will last/there’s nothing he can’t get past/no obstacle he cannot erase” you might not believe me; but it’s there on the album, and so’s “Now I want the world to see/Everybody look at me/I’m a good person and free/and O she loves me”. And plenty more where that came from. For all the story-telling (a.k.a. “making stuff up”) that has been a persistent feature of Oldham’s songs, a listener in the past couldn’t help thinking that sometimes he was genuinely telling us something about his life; that adultery theme on Ease Down the Road that I mentioned earlier popped up often enough to make me, at least, wonder what exactly was going on in Oldham’s life at the time. The warmth of the lyrics of Lie Down in the Light is the equivalent here: it’s so prevalent throughout the album that a listener comes away with the strong impression that things must be going pretty well for Oldham right now.

And why wouldn’t they be? It’s hard to think of another songwriter out there at the moment so universally admired and praised, so consistently at the top of his game. Ultimately, Lie Down in the Light will probably be marked down as a minor Oldham album, especially given the fact that it follows two albums of such boldness and magnificence as the Letting Go and Superwolf. Where those two albums, especially the Letting Go, were more often than not stunning and beautiful, Lie Down in the Light is more generally just pleasant. But there’s no reason not to get it, especially if you’re a fan, and though it might seem regressive it’s genuinely a pleasure to hear Oldham making this kind of music again; and it’s an unexpected and surprisingly welcome development that he should be writing songs so unambiguously full of – as the lyric sheet for the album’s opener puts it – LOVE.