Meursault "Crank Resolutions"

In recent years, Scotland has produced bands the likes of Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad, bands who are masters of expressing those darker, lonesome feelings. Meursault shares a great deal with those two previous groups, not just a Scottish heritage, but also their tragic, melancholy temperament. Inevitably, Meursault will be associated with the more established groups of their countrymen. A key track off their recent album All Creatures Will Make Merry, "Crank Resolutions" finds singer Neil Pennycook amidst the repetitive pattering of drums and layered keyboards, forlornly bemoaning his separation from some uncertain group of friends or social circle. The opening verse is beyond powerful, beyond downcast: "I broke down on new year's day / I mixed my drinks, and I lost my way." The feedback and distortion builds, and drives the narrator's own disoriented sense of emptiness.

It is never truly expressed who or what the narrator has become distanced from. The lyrics are cryptic, leaving the track open to interpretation. Yet given the title and the setting of the track on New Year's Day, it could be supposed that the narrator has resolved to kick his drug habit, crank being another term for methamphetamines, and separate himself from his circle of close friends who he used to run with. "Crank Resolutions" looks back with a gloomy remorse and incredible solitude ("I walked past the houses of every friend I've ever known / and I set off on my own"), and the track's most remorseful sentiment is illuminated by the repetitive lines "They carried you away" and "When they carried me away." The narrator seems confident that despite his current condition, in his lonesomeness he comes close to acknowledging that it might very well be beyond his capacity to help himself, he will one day be far removed from this misery. What appears to be most difficult is his realization that he lost an opportunity to escape this place or scene with someone very close to him, someone who has now moved on. In this self-imposed isolation, conscious regret permeates the track, and the narrator's regret and contrasting denial of those feelings the are bluntly summed up in the couplets: "If I had only known / that you'd been waiting in the street for me all day" and "And I never saw you waving / At least that's what I'll say." Meursault steeps this track with the feeling of such weighted regret and brooding, such a bleak outlook places an emphasis on the inability to find solace in moving forward towards something new. A cornerstone song for an album that Pennycook states places a focus on the lengths to which people go to pursue happiness and how that pursuit affects their state of mind. There must be something brewing up there in Scotland that makes a man sing with such despondency, but perhaps it is because the dreary days always seem more vivid in one's mind. As Sam Quinn says: "If you go up and cut somebody's stomach with a knife, they're probably going to remember that longer than if you give them a piece of gum," I think Meursault would agree.

Track of the Day: The Roots take on Monsters of Folk "Dear God"

Last year, Monsters of Folk released their first album, a self-entitled piece featuring the combined powers of Jim James (My Morning Jacket), M. Ward (She & Him), and Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis (both of Bright Eyes). Among the super-group's crafted tracks was "Dear God." The drifting background tones and the delicate guitar juxtaposed with the ghostly vocal work by James on the chorus, cooing "I know I'm thinking out loud / But if your love's still around, why do we suffer?" and Oberst's soul-searching inquiry, certainly one of the album's top tracks.

This brings us to The Roots new album, How I Got Over which was released yesterday. Included is a collaboration between The Roots and Monsters of Folk, "Dear God 2.0." I wouldn't quite call it a remix, the track brings far more to the table than that. It is a fresh visualization, drawing power from the superb drumming of ?uestlove and a haunting piano progression. Jim James still delivers the stirring chorus, and Black Thought takes the place of Oberst, providing provocative verses. Urging change and deploring the unsteady state of the world, Black Thought raps: "If I could hold the world in the palm of these / Hands, I would probably do away with these anomalies / Everybody checkin' for the new award nominee / Wars and atrocities / Look at all the poverty," and later begs for forgiveness for his own imperfections. A pretty and moving collaboration indeed.

Revisiting The Strokes

As it seems these days, more often than not Pitchfork provides some of the most timely news and tracks. One such nugget: Strokes Play First Show in Four Years. The prospect of the Strokes touring together again and releasing a new album is overwhelming, especially after the success of their respective side projects have teased listeners over the past few years with visions of the musical growth and maturity a new album might yield.

In light of such news, I have revisited the Strokes albums, rediscovering favorite tracks, taking the music in a new light. Alongside perennial favorites "Last Night" and "Hard to Explain," I am drawn most to Room on Fire. The guitars still come feverishly, the riffs are just as crisp, lacking none of the musical tenacity or tightness exhibited on Is This It? The tracks on Room on Fire build on that framework, by subtly exploring new emotional depths. Here, Julian Casablancas mastered an angst-filled, pleading, nostalgic approach, yet did not complicate with verbose lyrics.

Indicative of this heightened lyrical proficiency is "What Ever Happened?" The first track of Room on Fire finds Casablancas, back by heavy drums and relentless guitar-play, launching into the midst of heartbreak, begging, "I want to be forgotten / And I don't want to be reminded." Expounding on what seems to be an inevitable split and a tragic, unrequited love, Casablancas delivers choice lines such as: "I wanna be beside her / She wanna be admired" and "You don't miss me, I know." Building on Casablancas' emotional delivery, Albert Hammond Jr. produces riffs riddled with anxiety.

Comparatively, "Under Control" features laid back, smooth guitar work and a defeatist attitude. With simple, but telling lyrics, Casablancas lets his despair loose. Simple yet powerful, "I don't waste your time" and "I don't want to do it your way" are repeated during the three-minute track, emphasizing both the assured divergent path of the relationship in question and the hopelessness of the narrator to salvage it. The lack of subtle venom that is present in "What Ever Happened?" is illustrated by blameless lines like "We worked hard, darling / We don't have no control," and "I don't want to change your mind / I don't want to waste your time / I just want to know you're alright / I've got to know you're alright" declares an inability to fully disconnect. The potency of Casablancas' view of a fleeting youth: "You are young, darling / For now, but now for long," mirrors Hammond Jr. sweetly forlorn guitar riff, intangling the track with a sense of nostalgia. With Room on Fire, The Strokes produced what seemed on the surface to be an uncomplicated sophomore album, but in its simplicity the music is delicately-packed with the anxieties of love and musical tones to match it. With a new album on the drawing room floor, there should be great anticipation as to whether the band will be able to develop further, coming on the heels of their various side-projects, captivating as they were.

Great Cover

So, I came across this cover of Big Star's "Blue Moon" on Pitchfork a few weeks ago. Since then, I haven't been able to get it out of my head. Redone with a few twists, resonating, pulsing drums and balanced piano work yield a drifting, fleeting existence. Kendal Johansson delivers lyrically, she determinedly captures all the pleading, yearning, and unwavering emotion of the original. It doesn't hurt that the video is truly fascinating as well.

Kendal Johansson / Heidi Nilausen from AHDW on Vimeo.

Blitzen Trapper "The Man Who Would Speak True"

I remember being about twelve or thirteen, just beginning to get interested in music, sitting on the floor of the living room in my parents' house listening to my father's record of Dylan's The Times They are A-Changin'. I was struck then, as I am now, by the grizzly, yet beautiful ballad "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." Its power is compounded by its emotive social commentary, written with a potency that only Dylan is capable of.

While the songwriting of Blitzen Trapper frontman Eric Earley is certainly not on the level of intricacy and adeptness of Dylan, he and his band-mates do seem to grasp the concept of a murder ballad with a certain stirring, ethereal sentiment. "The Man Who Would Speak True," off of Blitzen Trapper's recently released Destroyer of the Void is just such a track, brimming with vivid imagery. The ballad will draw obvious comparisons to the group's "Black River Killer" from their previous album Furr, but listen close enough and the delicate differences between the two become clear. Both are gritty and haunting at their core, and are steeped with the markings of the folk tradition. "Black River Killer" is unrepentant in its language, and lacks otherworldly themes which make "The Man Who Would Speak True" so dreamy and spectral. Within the scope of Destroyer of the Void, "The Man Who Would Speak True" illustrates how Blitzen Trapper can effectively fuse experimental, artistic tones, such as the album's title track, with a more folk-rock approach, expanding the traditional frame of a murder ballad.

The narrator weaves his tale backed by a simply strum acoustic guitar, together with drifting harmonica and keyboards which provide "The Man Who Would Speak True" with its eerie tones. The first verse further expands these imaginative qualities, as the narrator somberly relates how he was saved from "a lonely place," but could not speak: "For I had no tongue it had been replaced / By a green and growing flower which grew / And I knew if I ever spoke I would speak true." In spite of the kindness shown this man by this woman Grace, who he relates was his lover, he is flawed and incapable of showing restraint: "But I fed my tongue on the Devil's rum / In a roadhouse run by a godless bum / On a drunken night with a stolen gun / I shot my lover as she made to run." At court, the narrator can offer no defense, refusing to speak, accepting the punishment handed down by a judge. When he kills again, in the song's next verse, it of an entirely different nature.

Here, Earley and company embark further into the track's mystical undercurrents. Presumably on his way to face whatever fate the judge had decreed, the narrator is assaulted by men of the law, men curious to know what dark secret he harbored. The lyrics read less with malice, and more with regret: "So I opened my mouth like a dragon's death / I only spoke truth but it only brought death / And I laid those boys to rest / For the truth, in truth, is a terrible jest." The narrator is incapable of suppressing whatever darkness is inside him, and the following verse echoes this: "For there ain't no road but the road to home / There ain't no crops but the ones you've sewn / And if you learn one thing from me / You better guard your tongue like your enemy." His tongue, rather what was once his tongue, gifts or curses the narrator with the ability to speak the truth to those around him, but it is a haunted truth over which he lacks control. "There ain't no crops but the ones you've sewn," is a harrowing reminder that no one can escape their past. Even the lawmen on the train have shameful flaws or perpetrated regrettable actions that seem to justify the narrator murdering them.

Unlike "Black River Killer," there is remorse embedded in the words of "The Man Who Would Speak True," he may kill, but he takes no pleasure in it. As the track comes to a close, the narrator is searching for peace, and a pinch of potential happiness exudes: "I came to ground in a one horse town / On the western rim where the sun goes down / Where a branded man might start again / For to right his wrong for to lose his sin." Yet even with a new start, his past and his condition condemn the narrator, and finding himself on the brink, he turns himself over to the authorities. Here, Earley ties together the song with a cyclical twist, as the narrator is banished. Just as he was found at the start in "a lonely place," so his tale ends: "And they planted me by the sea / Now the birds of the air make nests on me." The world has no place for the narrator's tortured words of truth, to which, it is implied, not a soul can measure up to and emerge guiltless.

Listening to this track as many times as I have over the past few days, many question arise concerning the narrator, who is he exactly? Are the truths he speaks merely words or is he endowed with some dark, spectral qualities? These are questions I don't think can be answered by anyone other than Blitzen Trapper themselves. In our mind's eye, we will each have varying images and thoughts arise when listening to "The Man Who Would Speak True," or any song for that matter. Just revel for a few moments in the beautifully eerie tones and words that Blitzen Trapper have provided for you.

The Black Keys 'She's Long Gone'

The new album 'Brothers' from the Black Keys has been monopolizing my music listening during the past few weeks. Over their past few records, the duo has gradually extended their range, moving away from a heavy reliance on the simplistic, yet effective, bluesy guitar-rhythmic drums combo that dominated their early work, and I think it's a good thing. Tracks like "Too Afraid to Love You" and the cover of "Never Give You Up," break that pattern, and the organ on songs like "The Only One" and "I'm Not the One" present a welcome harmony to Dan Auerbach's powerful guitar-work. There are so many tracks to pick from on 'Brothers,' but the one that has recently towered above the others is "She's Long Gone."

From the start, "She's Long Gone" has all the makings of a fantastic Black Keys track. The basic, yet magnetic guitar riff just pulls you in, and then before you know the drums are pounding and Auerbach is wailing away about this captivating, vixen of a woman who broke his heart. The narrator makes it clear to stay out of her way, in spite of her beauty, lest you fall victim as he did. His cautions calls you to heed his warning, with lines from the opening verse ringing out: "She was made to blow you away / She don't care what any man say / Well you can watch her strut / But keep your mouth shut / Or it's ruination day." With hardly a moment to allow himself or the listener to catch a breath, Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney are barreling into the chorus, drums thumping and hammering away, guitar seeming to sing out in validation of the narrator, who launches himself into a mournful, determined lament: "Well now she's long / Long gone / Oh now now she's long / Long gone / Like Moses through the corn." This woman is gone, but what is more, adding 'long' to the chorus begs the question of whether she left the narrator long ago and he still has not recovered or whether her flight was so sudden, earnest, and perhaps intentional, that she is now hundreds of miles away. Regardless, in her wake she has left a tormented man. She is compared to Moses, who in Exodus 10:12-13 is commanded by God to enable a plague to be brought across all of Egypt and its crops, and in this way we must believe that the narrator is not only heartbroken and in anguish, but also suffering under a great gloom of despair.

The narrator it seems is a broken man, frustrated and in agony, and as always the guitar and drums of the Black Keys meld and fuse with these emotions, emotions which Auerbach adeptly and believably wears as his own. The second verse carries sentiments no different from the first, for the narrator describes the woman's incomparable beauty and how that beauty draws men in, only to have them carelessly tossed in her wake, brokenhearted ("Well her eyes, they're rubies and pearls / And she's not made like those other girls / Well her lashes flap and send men back / Like springs bouncin' off of her curls"). And then, we are once again thrust into the chorus, where the narrator's emotion truly runs wild, the anguish is at its most palpable here. Auerbach and Carney bring the song to a close with an energetic solo on the part of Auerbach, whose work here is impeccable, the slight distortion of his wailing guitar again seems to echo the emotions of the narrator, establishing a knowing, emotional call and response between Auerbach's guitar and the torment the narrator expresses in the chorus.

At just over three minutes in length, "She's Long Gone" is just the right length for the Black Keys to put forth an energetic-paced track, and still allow the narrator to empty his heart of its feeling. Special recognition should be given to Carney and his drumwork, seemingly keeping the howling lament of the heartbroken narrator and the echoing wail of the guitar in check, not allowing the song to devolve into reckless heartache. In the end, however, I find myself listening to the narrator, believing that he could fall victim to this woman again. Despite his despair, he knows attempts to love her will end in a similar anguish, but the narrator's tone speaks out to caution others, perhaps he believes himself to damaged to save. Another hard-cut guitar riff, more exuberant drumming, and straightforward yet revealing vocals, "She's Long Gone" demonstrates what the Black Keys do best.

Welcome, Welcome

Hey y'all, just churning out a little 'hello' post to start things off. I love music, so I thought why not write about something I spend a good portion of my time listening to and reading about. I have enlisted the help of my younger brother, who is a vastly more talented writer than myself. My hope is that by sharing my thoughts and my interests that other people will be encouraged to do the same, to explore the many things that music can offer. I love experiencing new artists, it's one of the joys that makes music truly great, and urge anyone and everyone who reading this to share their own thoughts. For starters, I am going to try to dissect songs that I am enamored with at the moment, and hopefully grow from there. So, here we go...