(THIS POST ORIGINALLY APPEARS ON THE TWIN CITIES BLOG NEWEST INDUSTRY)
Houses, The Uncluded, The Veils, Shout Out Louds, & On And On...
Well hello again, MP3 junkies! Welcome to Songs Of The Week #39!
For those of you who are still unfamiliar with the column, here's the story: TCDroogsma has an MP3 problem. Each week he downloads dozens of MP3's and typically won't shut up about them. So, with that in mind, we put him to work.
So, each week he downloads the songs given away via The Current's Song Of The Day podcast. After spending a few days with them we ask him to write a review of each song and give it a score of 1-5.
As always, we strongly suggest that you follow this link and subscribe to the podcast yourself. It's free and it's fun for the whole family!
To that end, we also encourage you to give the songs a listen and then vote for your favorite in the poll to the right-hand side of this page. The winning artist receives the validation that comes with winning an anonymous poll on a blog, arguably the greatest achievement a modern musician can attain.
So, Droogsy... thoughts?
01. Houses - The Beauty Surrounds (from the album A Quiet Darkness)
TCDroogsma:
It took nearly an entire week of listening to "The Beauty Surrounds" before its... um... beauty finally revealed itself. It should be noted, of course, that since this is the first song of the week it means I'm typically listening to it while I walk to work at 5:45 in the morning. I can barely function at that point in the day let alone digest the subtleties of a chillwave-inflected pop song.
And yet, I'm almost certain that when my playlist cycles back to this song each April I'm going to have one of those, "Oh damn! I forgot about this one" moments.
The song eases in like a sunrise, with a simple clicking loop and descending synth-line. "There's some gold in my bones that I told you about..." is how we're greeted. "So I'm pulling out my teeth and burying them deep underground." What does that mean? I have no idea. Allegedly, A Quiet Darkness is a concept album about two people in post-apocalyptic America trying to reconnect. Well, seeing as how I'm only reviewing the one song and not the whole concept, the lyrics don't make a ton of sense.
Still, the co-lead vocals from Dexter Tortoriello and Megan Messina provide the same sort of warmth that one would expect from the aforementioned sunrise. "All my love won't bring you back to me" is a universal sentiment, whether it's fictional post-apocalypse America or non-fiction, pre-apocalypse America, Houses manages to strike a chord that resonates longer each time I hear it.
Final Score: 3.5/5
02. The Uncluded - Delicate Cycle (from the album Hokey Fright)
TCDroogsma:
It's almost unfair for me to review "Delicate Cycle." As an Aesop Rock devotee, I'm almost too familiar with The Uncluded. Thanks to Aesop's 900 Bats blog (not too mention his Twitter), I've heard "Delicate Cycle" in various forms for over a year.
Conversely, having heard Aesop Rock & Kimya Dawson together for quite a while now, The Uncluded has little novelty value left to me. The question, then, is does this project stand up once the surprise of hearing these two artists collaborate stand up?
The short answer: Yes. Aesop Rock had spent the years since None Shall Pass coping with a lot of things. He's even more disconnected from New York City. He's had friends and family pass away. He's gone through a divorce. All of these things were dealt with directly and indirectly on last year's Skelethon (and, in a very indirect way, on his Hail Mary Mallon project, which, with the benefit of time, sounds like a record consisting of a guy going out with his friends for a night on the town to try to forget the problems at home).
"Delicate Cycle" treads on the more literal side of Aesop's struggles. Of course, "literal" to Aesop still means layers and layers to dig through. His first verse is the sound of a man growing older, trying to make his peace with his new place in life, and (most importantly) acknowledging just how fragile it all is.
Kimya Dawson, as the opposite side of the same coin, spins a much more straightforward yarn of her dad working in a laundromat and the adventure's she had there. Is this a true story? I have no idea. But that's really the genius of the collaboration.
Dawson's tale of growing up in a laundromat (and the struggles of finally being able to afford her own washer and dryer, thus eliminating the need to go to the laundromat) may be fact, it may be fiction, but read as a very straight narrative leading up to the one big lesson (the "airing their dirty laundry" line) it leaves me with a new respect for her ability to get to the same place as Aesop with about 200 fewer words and 50 fewer metaphors. In the end, as both grow older, their acknowledging that they've grown wiser but not necessarily happier. Sometimes the only reasonable thing to do is to pick up a guitar and sing yourself a song.
Final Score: 4/5
03. The Veils - Through The Deep Dark Wood (from the album Time Stays, We Go)
TCDroogsma:
I've been going pretty hard for The Veils over the last year or so thanks to a friend pushing their first two albums on me. I wasn't an immediate fan, but they definitely won me over.
"Through The Deep Dark Wood" is not a drastic departure for the band, but it does show The Veils reaching a new level in their craft. Whereas they used to use singer Finn Andrews' howling-at-the-moon vocals to prop up songs when they flagged, "Through The Deep Dark Wood" has layers upon layers of charm.
Don't get me wrong, Andrews' still brings to mind the best moments of Hamilton Leithauser, but the rest of the band seem to have finally found a way to work up their own version of "The Rat" behind him. The guitars chime, the drums hurtle forward, and every time a break is needed, it's there building the suspense for the next blast. Really, a brilliant job by a band that seems to have really found its footing.
Final Score: 4/5
04. Shout Out Louds - Illusions (from the album Optica)
TCDroogsma:
Maybe I'm being unfair, but I've never been able to completely separate Shout Out Louds from the fact that that their Swedish. Every song I ever hear from them is meticulously crafted, catchy as good be, but entirely non-threatening and always leaving me wondering if the song was really about anything. Beautiful but distant. Y'know, like Sweden.
Take comfort, though, you sexy Nordic dance-poppers, there's a precedent here. I always felt the same way about fellow-Swedes The Cardigans. And here in 2013 I find myself one of the few people I know still willing to go to bat for that band. Great pop music is great pop music and Shout Out Louds are undeniably great at writing pop music.
Final Score: 3.5/5
05. On And On - The Hunter (from the album Give In)
TCDroogsma:
According to my extensive research (what up, Google!), On And On is a collaborative effort between musicians from Chicago and Minneapolis. While my distaste for Chicago is at an all-time high right now (fucking Blackhawks), I've definitely embraced this collaboration.
With "The Hunter" On And On manage to keep the sly, synth-heavy hooks that have dominated the Twin Cities over the last couple of years and mix them expertly with the kind of hammer-of-the-gods drums and guitar crunch that can only come from a city that couldn't be further from "Minnesota Nice."
The result is a song that that kicks around in your head, but also leaves you to realize that you're walking around work singing a song that's menacingly, excitingly sexual under your breath, and that if anybody actually heard you muttering, "You are the hunted, you know why I'm coming..." you'd probably find yourself in the greatest Human Resources there ever was. Any song that could theoretically lead to that scenario is a winner in my book.
Final Score: 4.5/5
Well there you have it, everybody! Another week's worth of songs downloaded, reviewed, and filed away!
As always, please keep in mind that neither Newest Industry nor its contributors is in any way affiliated with the artists above, The Current, or Minnesota Public Radio. We're just music fans with laptops and little bit too much time on our hands.
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