Remember when Kings of Leon used to be so good? Their first two albums, Youth and Young Manhood (2003) and Aha Shake Heartbreak (2004) were great. I miss those days.
... I couldn't decide which video I liked best.
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Kings of Leon
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Compare and Contrast: The Thermals' Desperate Ground
Tori and I are trying
something new on the Wires and Waves blog. It’s a weekly post called, Compare and Contrast. As long as I've known Tori, I loved to discuss music with her. She’s
one of those people that it’s fun to disagree with because she’s as passionate
about her musical convictions as I am. Not to say we always disagree. We also
have lots of common favorite bands and opinions on music too.
We thought it would be
fun for each of us to review the same album and let you, the reader, get two
different perspectives of it.
The first album we
chose to review is a new album by The Thermals released a few weeks ago, Desperate
Ground.
Tori's Review
I’ve been listening to the Thermals for some years now. I
first fell in love with them right around when The Body, the Blood, the Machine
came out in 2006. I heard them on the radio (thanks KEXP) and then saw them at
Bumbershoot. That album and then Now We Can See, released in 2009, have been in
my music listening rotation ever since. I love their raw, post-punk sound and
angsty lyrics packed with symbolism of struggles with religion, sin, and the
human race. And, yes, while most their songs do all sound pretty similar, using
the almost all same chord progression, it’s in good taste, true to the punk
sound. I only recently sat down and listened to their first two albums a couple
months ago, More Parts per Million and Fuckin A. They were good, I especially
enjoyed Fuckin A but not as much as the two albums the followed. The Thermals
seemed to peek at The Body, the Blood the Machine with Now We Can See taking a
close second. They then plummeted with Personal Life. They lost their edge in
that album. There was no punch. They take no stabs at mankind or God. True to
the album’s title, it was Hutch Harris crying about something personal. I
forget what because I got bored and stopped paying attention.
The Thermals’ new album, Desperate Ground seems to be a slow
crawl back to the height that The Body, the Blood, the Machine sits at. Still
some parts where I got a little bored but there’s still a little more kick to
it, a little more angst and vague symbols of war, blood and swords than in
Personal Life. Like in his 2006 and 2009 albums, Harris is still fighting to
live and struggling with his morals. The album started off really strong with
“Born to Kill” which seems to be a bit of a sequel to the track “I Might Need
You to Kill” off Body, Blood, Machine. The album continues with a few other
highs (I Go Alone) and lows (Faces Stay With Me) then really fizzles out with
“Our Love Survives.” And, more so than any other album, these songs really
don’t vary much in sound. All in all, it’s not a horrible album, better than
the previous one. It does give me a little more hope for what’s next. But, when
it comes down to it, I’d much rather listen to any of their first four albums.
Zach’s Review
Before listening to Desperate
Ground I’d never listened to The Thermals. I had no idea what to expect.
First off, all but one song on this album is under three minutes long which
makes for a quick listen of an entire album. This is a rock n roll, borderline
punk rock album. The first and only thing that comes to mind for me when
searching for a comparison are Japandroids. This may be unfair because Japandroids
have set such a high bar for this genre of rock n roll.
Did I love this album? No, but that doesn't mean I hated it.
I liked it but I don’t see myself coming back to it. To me this album
has a few really great songs and a lot of average songs. I thought they mostly
all sounded the same and that’s after multiple listens.
The biggest reason I couldn't get into this album were the
vocals. The lead singer almost speaks sings every song. Sometimes l like that
(mewithoutYou), but it didn't work for me on this album. That’s not to say there’s
no emotion behind his voice. There’s real conviction in his words and the way
he sings, I’m just not crazy about it.
“The Sunset” is the strongest track on the album and is the
song with the most variation from the others, followed by the last track, “Never
Age”.
Truthfully I probably just didn't get it. I usually don’t
listen to this type of music. It’s a little out of my expertise to critique a
band like The Thermals. I’ll admit the most exciting thing to me about them is
that they released this album on Saddle Creek, which used to be my favorite
record label.
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Zach's Song of The Day
I couldn't be more excited for the new Vampire Weekend album, Modern Vampires of The City. Friday they released another song along with a really cool lyric video.
Also, lyric video's are the bomb. I'm glad they're a thing right now.
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Middle School and Radiohead
I teach computers at a middle school. Everyday when they
come in I have a blog prompt up on the board. It's usually something like,
"What's your favorite food" or "If you had superpowers, what
would they be?", stuff like that. Today I wrote, "Listen to the Song
that's playing and tell me what you think about it. You'll have to be quiet to
hear it."
When they came in "Codex" by Radiohead was playing
in the background. They blogged about it and here are some of their responses.
Some of them liked it, but most hated it. Sorry, Thom York.
.
"Thanks for having us listen to this horrible song and
ruining my day even more. I appreciate it."
"Well i really think this is a very boring song and it
is to sad for the morning to be sad so yeah but that is just me and very
depressing and not happy and smooth and quiet the kind of music my cousin
listens to and she is like 23 years old. boring"
"This song is very calming and yet vary emotional. He
uses very little to explain a whole lot. I like it because it is sad like and
yet very calming. I like how it is very dinamic and very expressive. It is as
well as sad as it is emotional."
"Well……um……It’s awful. It is one of the WORST songs I
have ever heard. I’m really sorry Mr. Gibson but now I have a headache. I have
a feeling that this song means something to you so I won’t be REALLY harsh. But
common its sucks. It isn’t really a song to me people would wanna listen to. It
sounds like the background music in a death film after everyone dies or
something. I’m not kidding it hurts my head. TURN IT OFF!!!!!!"
"this song reminds me of like a movie opening song and
it sounds like the band “city and colour” cause the way the singer sings and
the piano….."
"This song is very relaxing. I like the grand piano in
the background It sort of reminds me of
a song that would be playing in the movie “500 Days of Summer”. I love that
movie although Zoey plays a total jerk in it. I like this song because it
sounds as if it raining, but just enough rain to still be happy, and
relaxing."
"Its really weird.its also boring.i don't like it at
all.this song is slow.i don't like slow songs."
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Great Gatsby Soundtrack
I know, I know, this is my second post in one day but I can't help it. Baz Luhrman's much anticipated movie comes out next week, The Great Gatsby. It's one of my favorite directors doing one of my favorite books. I am crazy excited for it but let's talk about the soundtrack for a second. It's amazing and not just because Jack White contributed to it. It has some other really talented people on it including Beyonce, Jay-Z, Lana Del Ray and Florence and The Machine. It has a lot of high energy tunes as well as some slower ones. It even has some great covers (Zach, I know you hated the Amy Winehouse cover but in all honesty, I really didn't mind it). Not to mention the old jazz mixed in with modern music, as is expected for a Luhrman movie. All in all, it's a really well done soundtrack. It has me even more pumped for the movie, if that's even possible.
The soundtrack is posted on NPR's First Listen here.
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Janelle Monae + Erykah Badu
Janelle Monae just released a new single, Q.U.E.E.N. featuring Erykah Badu. It's really great. Janelle Monae is just really cool. So is Erykah Badu. Plus they can sing.
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Zach's Song of The Day
One good thing about living where we do is that the NPR programming is phenomenal. After 7:00 p.m. all they play is indie rock. My favorite show is on every Sunday. It's called Songs From The Plains and is hosted by musician Samantha Crain and her friend, Samantha Lamb.
I was driving home last Sunday night when they played a J. Tillman (now Father John Misty) song. It's a song called "Labourless Land" from my favorite of his albums, Vacilando Territory Blues and it's my song of the day.
