12. Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Drinky:
Drum's Not Dead, alright. Drums have hardly ever sounded more alive and inventive, and yet the success of Liars newfound approach goes far beyond just the mammoth percussion displayed on this album's livelier tracks. Throughout the bulk of the record, eerie, skeletal melodies emerge from sparse, amorphous instrumentation, driven more by a droney synth feel than guitars, often moving at a snail's pace. The vocals range from ominous chants to mildly unsettling falsettos with the occasional harmony, to sleepy, monotone recitations that exert a sort of cold nonchalance. The tightly focused sonic palette somehow never seems too constricting as it fluidly shifts and evolves over the course of the album, culminating in the surprisingly warm and uplifting "The Other Side Of Mt. Heart Attack".
It's a polarizing album, to be sure, one that has definitely lost them some fans. But what Liars have now is something much richer, more complex, and more inspired than their old sound. It works because it doesn't flinch or compromise or try to condescend to any supposed audience level. There's an undeniable confidence in its inward plunge and triumphant emergence, indicative of a band that have truly found their niche. A continuously rewarding album,
Drum's Not Dead is surprisingly varied and meticulously layered in ways that only reveal themselves after repeat listens. It may not be for everybody, but for me it's become indispensable. The best record of 2006 and probably of the past few years.
pumachik:
What’s with all the hype? I tried to like this album, but I just couldn’t. I get it: the concept of the “yin/yang” forces. Drums vs. mountain. Creativity vs. stress. Drone vs. rhythm. Violence vs. serenity. Pretense vs. modesty. However, it doesn’t satisfy me because it is too pretentious for my taste. The opening track “Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack!” builds you up and leads you to think something is going to happen… but no, it just ends abruptly. As I continued to try to listen to the rest of the album, I felt like I should be wearing a white robe and drinking the ‘kool-aid.’ As a matter of fact, someone suggested that I listen to the album in the dark but it actually scared me to even think about doing that. The one track I could even
remotely tolerate is “The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack” and it closes the album well… but the only feeling that it left me with was that this should be one of the songs played at my funeral. I respect the band for stepping outside the boundaries and trying something different and artistic, but
Drum’s Not Dead just isn’t my cup o’ tea.
11. Cat Power - The Greatest
crutches of destruction:
I did not see it coming. I was intrigued with the idea of the mercurial C. Marshall recording, in Memphis, with sidemen from the glorious seventies, when Al Green was still a lover, not a preacher. Maybe she could find a good melody, if not personal, psychic balance. Sure enough, she has. From the opening phrase of “The Greatest” — ‘once, I wanted to be the greatest’ — Chan steps away from the impending doom of critical adulation & collaboration with performers some orders of magnitude more famous than her, & for the first time finds power in her stage-fright, a narrator for her laconia.
I offer that it is in the setting. She has decamped from New York, where You are free was put to tape, & found sanctuary in the welcoming arms of professional musicians, not paid entertainers. (Certainly, they accrue recompense for their services, but these Memphis studio mavens are obviously not Eddie Vedder. But, I do like them better.) With them, she finds the soft, but still lively, melodies to accompany her plain-speak observations that, while facing the end, remain less than laments. Even the account of past drunks “Lived in bars” is not a melancholia of broken dreams & confession, but, rather, a reportorial description of boozy (but not necessarily depraved) evenings spent in the company of friends-for-a-moment at the local VFW.
I think I might be starting to like Cat Power. Now that she is no longer a “hipster exploitation project” — credit to Wonkette on that, from their description of Wesley Willis — she no longer has the sideshow air of the lost & meagrely skilled, on display because of how out of place it is to put her on display. Now, she is a performer, not a diversion. In retreating from the spotlight, she found it. & she could not have done so with better aides de camp.
timmyjoe42:
This album sounds like the lonely music that is in every romantic movie, where the guy and girl aren't together towards the end. It would be playing in the background as they are realizing how much they
really miss each other. Cue the scene where they chase each other down on the busy sidewalk and embrace while proclaiming their love. I keep picturing Hugh Grant walking around London while the girl he is in love with sits on her couch crying while looking at knick-knacks accumulated on their dates.
Cat Power has a deep sexy voice that lulls you either into a romantic mood if you are with someone that you can have romance with, or it pulls you into depression wishing you had someone with whom to share your romance.
This is the kind of music that my conservative catholic father would listen to, if he listened to music. Instead, he listens to talk radio. He enjoys stuff that sits in the background and doesn't deserved to be heard. The even tone of the first 12 tracks on "The Greatest" make it seem almost like one long track that drifts into the back of your thoughts.
10. Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies
Esh:
Dan Bejar would seem to be more natural a singer in theatre, which is part of why we love his music, sometimes dearly; but also why he seems detached from it, lost a bit in his literacy. I measure all Destroyer works against "Your Blues", whereas his "Rubies" belongs more with the rock canon of "Streethawk" and "This Night". The arrangements come off once again as haphazard, the production is overlapped; but every song arrives at its hook, and without exploiting it – nuances in the many layers form its charm. These are ultimately pop songs, sprawling ones, but ones that manage to hold on, by their traditional rock instrumentation and just-evident production. The only remnants of "Your Blues" are a few stray referential lyrics, and vocal reverb, missing its MIDI bombast – maybe the only Destroyer record we'll have like that? "Rubies" is another of his great narrative and melodic workouts, but it falls short of the madness and boldness of "Your Blues", and actually its tautness. Destroyer wears his spot in the Obner Top 20 well, but I don't think it's as memorable as "Ys", not to compare.
crutches of destruction:
Assuredly, this is not metal. Better for it, too. The world has enough Hispano-thrash with Brujeria & Sepultura/Soulfly, thank you very much. That said, the hint of a combat booted past on the eponymous opener, with the martial drumming, was a nice nod to expectations-on-name-alone.
Quickly enough, then, the tempo moves into a sombre but unrelaxed pacing with lyrics regarding a go-it-alone posture in the wake of the ascent of a monied but unprincipled indie-rock class. Following that, “Your blood” & “European oils” complete a excellent opening triptypch, with the last’s “Goodbye to love” worthy solo (about two-thirds in?) climaxing the textured, flamenco-seeming guitar patter of the opening quarter.
The album lulls for a bit, though, on the next two cuts, but revives with “3000 flowers”, whose guitar heroics to open echo the Oils solo. The lyrics also regain some heft, with the exercise in incompatibility of “Dangerous woman… to a point” a particular stand-out, in that it defies the contemporary pop & indie convention of being weepy. It is to-the-point & reportorial, a metro section story, not a Livejournal harangue. (Lovely as the latter are, I’m sure.)
At this, we reach the close of the album, another triptych that reminds me of the second Rentals album, though a slightly-more-loungy-rather-than-clubby rock sound. The first & third of the set also prominently feature priests, perchance indicative of a theme of remaining even-tempered & self-aware, as is the necessity of the buen pastor. Now, to hope that this album can serve to guide the course of independent music.
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