I was listening to All Hail West Texas by The Mountain Goats the other day when my eyes came to rest on the album's intriguing subtitle:
Leaning closer to the speakers, I tried to identify each item on that list within the lyrics of those fourteen songs. The motorcycle is obviously the one mentioned in Jenny ("900 cubic centimetres of raw, whining power"), and I guess the locked treatment facility is the one in Utah that Cyrus (one-half of The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton) gets sent to. Cyrus and his friend Jeff are two of the seven people; The Mess Inside features several references to one of the two houses.
Beyond that, though, I struggled. I fished out the inlay booklet in the hope that John Darnielle's liner notes would shed some light on the matter, but alas, the information contained therein mostly concerned itself with the recording process rather than with characters and stuff.
2015 has been an excellent year for new music, and selecting just 10 outstanding albums from the riches lately lavished upon my ears was no easy task. Several deserving LPs have cruelly been excluded here, but rules is rules (even if I made them up) and only 10 records can make the final cut.
So here they are: The Album Wall's Top 10 Albums of 2015. How many have you heard?
10) The Sovereign Self by Trembling Bells
This is a glorious folk-proggy mess of an album. The Sovereign Self finds Trembling Bells straddling the river of history, dipping a big net in the water, and throwing everything they catch into the pot. Straightahead krautrock, medieval ballads, psychedelic hard rock...it's all here, bubbling noisily away, and the resulting stew is quite remarkable indeed.
Best Tracks: I is Someone Else // Killing Time in London Fields // Sweet Death Polka
It's that time of year again! Time to take stock, to look back, to make a big list of the year's best music and put it all into some sort of order. Here's a rough schedule for The Album Wall's End of Year Week 2015:
Today: Top 20 Songs of the Year (20-11)
Wednesday: Top 20 Songs of the Year (10-1)
Friday: Top 10 Albums of the Year
It's been a heck of a year, musically speaking, and we've got a lot to get through between now and Black Friday, so let's jump right in. Here's the first half of my 'Songs of 2016' list:
20) Wish Upon a Bar by Frog
(from Kind of Blah)
Verbose, slow-building indie rock? Slurry wordplay on a Disney classic? The sense - implied by the warm, glowing sound and made explicit by the second verse - that all of this is happening around Christmastime? It's like this song was made for me.
August - and, by extension, summer - is just about over, but before we dive head-first into autumn (my favourite time of year, brimming with colour and crispness and dancing celebrities), let's look back at the last thirty days and take stock of what I was listening to this month...
1. Dimed Out - Titus Andronicus
(from The Most Lamentable Tragedy)
August was the month I finally sank my teeth into Titus Andronicus's two-disc rock opera, The Most Lamentable Tragedy. The album's rollicking lead single is still a highlight, but there's plenty more where this came from - read my thoughts on TMLT here.
Following on from Monday's blog - a list of my 15 favourite songs from the first half of 2015 - today I'd like to look at some of the best albums from that same six-month period.
Detailed below are the five current top contenders for my own personal 'Album of the Year' award; like the songs on Monday, they're listed in random order, just in case I don't hear anything better before Christmas and my current frontrunner actually turns out to be my favourite of 2015. Gotta keep some semblance of suspense, right?
My Love is Cool - Wolf Alice
This album only came out about a fortnight ago, but it's already given my ears many a roughing-up. My Love is Cool is a superb 'hello' album; not only does it establish Wolf Alice as a cool, dangerous outfit that you wish you could be a part of ("You can join us if you think you're wild, you can join us if you're a feral child"), it also demonstrates that this is a band with many an arrow in their quiver. There's a really great range of styles on show here: between sirenic synth numbers, crank-it-up rawk, and slow-building Slowdive homages, there's really no room to get bored.
We have now entered the second half of 2015. In recognition of that fact, this entire week will be dedicated to The Album Wall's 2015 Halftime Report - later in the week, I'll be selecting some of my favourite albums of the year so far, as well as highlighting some forthcoming releases that will hopefully be rocking my world between now and New Year's Eve.
Today, though, is all about the songs. Here - in no particular order, are 15 of my favourite tracks from the first 182 days of 2015.
Disclaimer #1 - Not included in this list are songs from albums that have not yet been released, e.g. Dimed Outby Titus Andronicus. That song will undoubtedly prove to be one of the year's best, but as The Most Lamentable Tragedy isn't out until late July, it's not eligible for this halftime list.
Disclaimer #2 - I'm only one person, and while I do get sent a few albums here and there, I do buy most of the music I listen to myself. This does rather limit the number of CDs I'm capable of taking in; if your favourite song doesn't feature in the list below, it may well be because I haven't heard its parent album yet. Feel free to recommend anything I might have missed!
Foreign Object - The Mountain Goats
(from Beat the Champ)
One of the most straightforward songs on both this list and Beat the Champ itself, but that simplicity is very much an asset for Foreign Object, a tight little horn-led thing that's sung from the POV of a wrestler who doesn't care about winning as long as he can "make 'em bleed like pigs".
Last month, I wrote a blog about two great sports-themed LPs that I'd been listening to a lot: The Mountain Goats' Beat the Champ (an album about professional wrestling), and The Baseball Project's 3rd (an album about - surprise, surprise - baseball).
Shortly after that post was published, I received the following recommendation from one Matt Jones on Twitter:
I was intrigued; not only did I have another fun-looking sports album to listen to, it was an album by the bassist from The Mountain Goats (i.e. the man who made even the dullest parts of Tallahasseekind of interesting). Better still, it was FREE!
I'm off to fabulous Barcelona today for the Primavera Sound festival, so this month's musical digest is going up slightly earlier than usual. There will be no new blog posts while I'm away, although I may fire off the odd update from Spain over on Twitter (I'm @TheAlbumWall).
Anyhow, here to tide you over in my absence are ten of the songs that have run barges through my ear canals over the past few weeks:
1. From Nails to Thumbtacks - The Baseball Project
(from 3rd)
My first blog post of May 2015 compared wrestling with baseball, and 3rd with The Mountain Goats' more recent album about professional wrestling. Wrestling emerged victorious from that comparison, at least in the grit stakes, but this true story of superstar-turned-carjacker Lenny Dykstra demonstrates that America's pastime does have some fairly gritty stories of its own.
Upon hearing Beat the Champ - the latest album from The Mountain Goats - I was instantly reminded of The Baseball Project, the sport-obsessed supergroup that's made up of R.E.M. alumni and various other alt rock luminaries. To date, The Baseball Project have released three albums' worth of songs about baseball and the stories that have become the sport's legends; with Beat the Champ, John Darnielle has done much the same thing, except with professional wrestling.
Who'd have thought that I'd ever buy another Mountain Goats album? My first impressions of Tallahassee (click here to read) were uncertain at best and downright disappointed at worst, but instead of retiring the CD after one spin, I listened again and, helped along by some insight from Liam 1p, I soon changed my mind.
Depressing Album Week is almost at an end, so let's crank it up to 11 with the most depressing album in my entire collection, if not the whole damn world: Hospice by The Antlers.
Hospice is not an easy listen. I can hardly bear Kettering, the second track, simply because Peter Silberman sounds like he's got the microphone halfway down his throat the whole time. You can hear every noise his mouth makes; not just the words, but the sound of his lips parting, his cheeks clicking, his tongue moving around. It's too intimate, and in that respect it sets a pretty good precedent for the rest of the record.
I'm not entirely clear on the story that Hospice tells - something about a guy and a girl in a shitty relationship, and also the girl has terminal cancer - but even when the details are a little vague, this is still an absurdly upsetting album. Not merely depressing - upsetting. Both Hospice and Tallahasseeare about severely fucked-up relationships, but the guy from The Mountain Goats sounds kind of gleeful throughout his dysfuntional little tale. His songs are the kind that could conceivably be shouted along to, drink raised to the ceiling and bittersweet endorphins rattling around in your head. There aren't any songs like that on Hospice. The only smiles are insane ones, mad with the shadow of death and misery that hangs over this album. Compare No Children from Tallahassee with Bear from Hospice; there are plenty of similarities, and yet their tones are world apart.
Where albums like Last of the Country Gentlemenand perhaps even Tallahassee can offer comfort as well as sadness, it seems like The Antlers would sooner tear off your skin and prod your tender flesh with a stick. Hospice was recorded on quite a low budget, it seems, and some of the production verges on being genuinely difficult to listen to (not unlike some of the lyrics).
Which begs the question of why anyone would ever choose to sit through Hospice. It's sonically challenging and impossible to detach from; a major theme is the protagonist's feeling of guilt, as if he's somehow to blame for the woman's illness, and when her siren voice comes shooting out of Thirteen, you can't help but feel responsible too:
"Pull me out
Pull me out Can't you stop this all from happening?"
It's all absolutely agonising, up to and including the Epilogue, which has the same melody as Bear but somehow sounds a lot darker (Bear, believe it or not, is this album's big pop single). Here's a snatch of Epilogue's lyrical content:
"You return to me at night just when I think I may have fallen asleep
Your face is up against mine, and I'm too terrified to speak
You're screaming
And cursing
And angry
And hurting me
And then smiling
And crying
Apologizing"
And then, just when you feel like nothing good will ever happen to you ever again, a magical, miracle sound explodes out of your headphones and makes you feel electric and you realise that this, this feeling is why you've been listening. The point I've been brushing up against all week is that depressing albums make you feel good, and as horrible as Hospice is, it's one of the most amazing listening experiences out there. Essential.
If you asked me to name the most depressing song I could think of, I know exactly what I'd say. Forget Radiohead, and Leonard Cohen, and so on; the most depressing song I can name is Shop Vac by Jonathan Coulton.
Last of the Country Gentlemendoesn't even come close to Shop Vac in the depressing stakes. Josh T. Pearson sounds pretty miserable on that album, for sure, but where Country Dumb and its cohorts are bursting at the seams with leaky, sobbing emotion, Shop Vac hints at some even more depressing stuff: emptiness, detachment, and a complete lack of caring. Check out these lines:
"If you need me, I'll be downstairs with the shop vac,
You can call but I probably won't hear you,
Because it's loud with the shop vac on,
But you'll be okay, 'cause you'll be upstairs with the TV,
You can cry and I probably won't hear you,
Because it's loud with the shop vac on."
It's subtle, and the song is so upbeat that a cursory listen gives very little indication of what's actually going on. Incidentally, I think a sad set of lyrics becomes a lot more depressing when stuffed into a catchy pop song like Shop Vac - at least you know where you stand with howlin', shiverin' Josh Pearson.
When Ibranded Tallahasseewith my mark of indifference last month, I had very little notion of the plump, juicy concept that was throbbing beneath its skin. As I said towards the end of that blog post:
"I've just taken a peek at Tallahassee's Wikipedia page, and it's apparently a concept album (I did wonder - a lot of these songs are about marital breakdown and falling out of love) so I'm interested to have another listen and see how knowing about the story changes my perception of things."
Any Tallahassites I disappointed with my first impression will be pleased (and perhaps a little smug) to hear that I have indeed had another listen, and quite a few more on top of that. Whether it's because I've learned about the Alpha Couple or simply because I'm a little more familiar with the songs now, Tallahassee has been right at the forefront of my regular rotation recently.
And my favourite thing about it is just how bleak it's turned out to be. Don't get me wrong, none of these tracks are as misleadingly chirpy as Shop Vac, and nobody will ever mistake No Children for a happy song. But as depressing as that song is on its own, things get a whole lot more upsetting when you tie it all together. Remember Alpha Rats Nest, Tallahassee's closing track? I thought it was a bit goofy when first I heard it. Have a listen:
Well, I was doing a bit of research - trying to work out what each song was about, and what it had to do with the central story - and there was one person on SongMeanings who thought that Oceanographer's Choice was about the protagonist drowning his wife, and Alpha Rats Nest was him setting fire to their house with himself and her corpse inside. That's only one interpretation, but pretty much everyone seems to agree that, at the very least, ARN is about the house burning down.
I find Tallahasse depressing (and hence awesome) for the same reason I like Shop Vac. Breaking up would actually be a happy ending for this couple, but that just ain't gonna happen. Instead, they stay together (for increasingly vague reasons) and drink all the alcohol they can get their hands on in a house that, like their marriage, is constantly on the verge of falling apart.
There are still songs that don't seem to have any obvious relation to the overarching plot (See America Right, Peacocks) and, yes, songs that I still don't much like (The House That Dripped Blood, International Small Arms Traffic Blues). But Tallahassee has shot up in my estimation since First Impressions Week; where it struck me as a disappointingly unexplosive listen at first, I now can't get enough of its little miseries. A depressing backstory can do wonders, it seems.
Oh, one last thing. It would be remiss of me to reappraise Tallahassee without mentioning Liam from the 1p Album Club (he did a guest post for me a few weeks back). After I posted my lukewarm first impression, he emailed me his own thoughts on the album, and his words of enthusiasm for it - especially for the lyrics and the story they tell - was a big part of what made me keep listening. Thanks, Liam!
First impressions may not be everything, but they're certainly important. This week, I'm listening to three recent purchases for the first time, and blogging my initial thoughts, track-by-track. Monday was AWOOby The Hidden Cameras; today, it's the turn of Tallahassee by The Mountain Goats.
Here's what I've got going into this album. Firstly, I've heard No Children before, and I love it. It's the reason I bought the CD. Secondly, I make music under the name Shiny Tiger, and at least one person has told me that my stuff reminds them of The Mountain Goats. Thirdly, several people on Twitter have told me that Tallahasse ranks among their favourite albums of all time.
I'm hoping for big things here. Let's do it...
Tallahassee This is a gentle start. The bassline is nice, but this doesn't seem like it's going anywhere. Maybe it's about to explode...nope. Quiet opener, ease us in.
First Few Desperate Hours Bit more invigorating, bit more pointed, rising and falling a little more than the rather static first track. Still no No Children, mind...
Southwood Plantation Road Ooh, electric sounds! This one's got a slightly kooky feel to it, although it could do with some drumming to drive it along a little more. The vocals are kind of choppy too, coming and going at their leisure; I was hoping that every song would have an elegant, brutal cascade of words running through it, and right know he sounds like he's just singing things as they pop into his head.
Game Shows Touch Our Lives Aha! That was a cymbal! Clearly you've got a drumkit in that room with you, Mr. Mountain Goats, so why don't you hit it? This track is slower, and calmer; it's got nice moments, but it's not so amazing as a whole. Oh god, I'm really not that bothered about this album so far! Does the whole internet hate me now?
The House That Dripped Blood I like 'the cellar door is an open throat'. That's a good line. It's a pulsating, menacing song, to be sure, but it's still not doing all that much for me...
Idylls of the King Oh good, a calm, quiet track. I might have needed that, if the first five songs had blown my mind even slightly. Ugh. This is okay, the 'all of them/all lined up bit' is cool, as is that xylophone bit underneath, but then I just spend the rest of the songs waiting for that bit to come back.
No Children See, why couldn't every song be like this one? I was worried that this wouldn't sound as good as I remembered, but it does. It's amazing.
See America Right OH MY GOD DRUMS. THANK JESUS. This is a ballsy bit of fuzzed-up nastiness, isn't it? It's also one of the best songs so far. Reminds me of The Hold Steady, a bit.
Peacocks ...And we're back. This is a 'sittin' on the back porch, strummin' a guitar' song, and it's...uh...kinda pointless. Sing No Children again!
International Small Arms Traffic Blues No, don't get quieter! asdfagfhrgu
This is another one that's not giving me much to hang onto. It reminds me of Isobel by the Brakes, and Josephine by The Magnetic Fields, except it's not as pretty as the former and not as lyrically enjoyable as the latter.
Have to Explode Maybe I've entered into this album with the wrong expectations. I wanted a man spilling his guts, loudly and passionately, but it's all so GENTLE. If I wasn't paying attention, I wouldn't have even noticed that this, ISATB and Peacocks were three different tracks. I'm bored, and this album is running out of time to turn that situation around.
Three tracks to go. Seriously, Mr. Goats, I really don't want to tell everyone how disappointed I was with this album. I don't care how you do it, but please please please pull a few good songs out of the bag here.
Old College Try Okay, this is better...nice organ, the words are flowing more freely than in previous songs, I'm actually kind of interested in what he has to say again. Ooh, and a cool organ solo! This whole ordeal might have a happy ending yet.
Oceanographer's Choice Oh my goodness, we may actually have a comeback on our hands here. Against all odds, this one's got a really good groove behind it, and things suddenly sound like they're building to something. It's got drama, it's got tension, it's got an EVERLOVIN' DRUMKIT...and he just did a title drop and it sounded really badass. "Night comes to Tallahassee!" This is great; I've almost forgotten how little I cared about this album a couple of songs ago.
Alpha Rats Nest Please be a good one, please be a good one...oh, well, it's upbeat, at least. You could almost dance to this song if you wanted to. My heart still hasn't been ripped out and shown to me, which is kind of what I wanted from Tallahassee, but this certainly has some good stuff going for it. A slightly strange choice of closing track, but at least it was a decent tune.
So a good finish, but overall this struck me as something of a let down. Joking aside, I don't really care about how little drumming there is. It's more what the drumlessness represents, and that's an album that should have been absolutely gut-wrenching but turned to be surprisingly ho-hum.
This is nothing more than an initial impression, of course. I've just taken a peek at Tallahassee's Wikipedia page, and it's apparently a concept album (I did wonder - a lot of these songs are about marital breakdown and falling out of love) so I'm interested to have another listen and see how knowing about the story changes my perception of things. And hey, I was a bit indifferent towards AWOO when I wrote Monday's blog post, and I'm loving those songs now.
So maybe this will grow on me too. I guess we'll see, eh?
