So everybody NEEDS to get the new Modest Mouse record. The name, creepy considering I now work on a ship, is ‘We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Went Down, We Were Lucky’

It follows a number of very good albums, all of which I have enjoyed immensely. However I always had my reservations about how much I really liked the band. I heard tracks and thought that they were the best band I had heard in years. Then a weak lily-livered song would follow and I would want to toss the disc away.

Now they have arrived with something that is mature intelligent witty and so easy to enjoy without being “easy”. The LS has decided, to my joy, to throw away his gentle crooning and throw his voice out there with guts and strength and most of all passion. It is like he bumped into Win Butler who told him to stop trying to ballad us to death. It works, past albums gave us songs like ‘bury me with it’ ‘Alone down there’ ‘Cities of Ashes’ etc  Songs with passion and drive. I like nothing more than a vocalist who has the guts to throw his voice out there and see what happens. Too many are afraid to be so exposed.

I think this album, although more mad, vocally. Is probably the most listenable. Many have said it is a safe album, but I disagree. I think it is gutsy as hell. 8 minute songs, accordians, repetitive phrasing, odd timing, a steady theme, Songs about flies in a jar for heavens sake. I mean if that isnt screaming “PLEASE DONT GIVE ME RADIO PLAY” I dont know what does. The trumpet in Spitting Venom makes me so happy I could cry.  

If there is one thing I did not like, and this is clutching at very sparse straws,  was the repetitive phrasing in parting of the sensory. The problem for me is it is such a strong song and I really enjoy it, I adored the repetition the first couple of listens, but it gets tired very quickly. 

Stand out tracks

March into the Sea

Dashboard

Fire it up

Spitting Venom

Education

The other thing I really like about the album, is it is an hour long. Far too many artist are making 30 minute albums. That is NOT a 3 course meal. It is an hor d’ ouvre. I am not in the business of listening to albums that dont have enough respect to make an album longer than a Godspeed song. 

Anyhow…excellent. Get it

This is one of the saddest days I have had on the ship.

 South Africa have just won the Rugby World Cup and I am here on this rolling monstrosity picturing my friends and family having the most amazing time.

I am not sad that I missed us winning. I am sad that I never got to experience, again, the joys of the build up. The stresses and stomach pains. The moment when your boys run onto the field, and they are YOUR boys. They belong to us and we love them.

I was screaming with joy in the crew bar with all the other South Africans. I was singing and cheering and whooping for joy. But it was so hollow. All of us faking joy as much as possible to pretend that we are human again, that we can feel. Instead of the usual hollow work work work that we do.

So that is my thought for the day, a hollow joy. I feel nothing but the desire to feel something. Well done my beautiful boys.

Peace girlguy/guyguy TheBrr

So I got the new Radiohead album a couple of days ago. Its called In Rainbows(IR) which I think is a fantastic title and the artwork is super as well. Well I think so, as I have just seen it on the website and as yet I only have a nicked version, I have all the good intentions of buying the special edition when I reach a place which actually stocks it. I have been at sea for 2 months and have not been in an English speaking city for those entire two months. I don’t think that Contanza in Romania even has a MP3 player never mind a person who could direct me to the nearest shop with the Special Edition Radiohead Album.

A friend of mine JJ suggested that IR was better than Hail To The Thief (HTTT). I disagree. For me httt was the culmination of years and years of work and growth from the band. It encapsulates everything from The Bends to Amnesiac. Everything that they had done well, 90’s rock to their newfound love of electronica blended so well into an album with soul and warmth that moved me so much. It is easily one of my all time favourite albums and I find it very difficult to compare anything with it.

I have a bad habit of being disappointed with Radiohead albums and then a few months later retracting my words proclaiming that they have once again reinvented what musicians should be doing. I did it with Kid A and had to retract my words 6 months later when I listened to it in the way it deserved, without comparing it with Ok Computer.

So maybe I am playing with fire when I write with less than absolute enthusiasm about IR. There are a number of standout tracks which have blown me away, but I think that maybe Thom and the boys have been listening to far too much Sigur Ros and Aphex twin recently. The rhythm is sigur and the beats are Aphex. I don’t like the coldness of Aphex twins music. The beats have given the same coldness to IR.

Kid A has a lot of electronica, but it was warm and taken from real instruments all twisted up. The main thing I love about Radiohead is the way they reinvent music every album. It doesn’t hold true for this album. I hear Eddie Vedder’s voice all the time. Especially from the album ‘yield’ I think the song is ‘evolution’. The other band I hear a lot is Sugardrive, now I know that that is clutching at straws as Radiohead have never heard of Sugardrive never mind heard their music. The sounds that Radiohead are creating are very similar to the album ‘When I Died I Was Elvis” which is about 10 years old, but Sugardrive did these twisted sounds with the distorted voice ten years ago.

There are a few tracks which are fantastic, Bodysnatchers and All I Need. Bodysnatchers has one of the most wonderful changes in rhythm I have heard in a long time. All I need is very quiet for a long time and it is a very short song. It is a teaser of the highest degree. The last minute is exquisite, I wish I could sleep in that percussion/ piano combination. It makes the album worthwhile. I have been humming House Of Cards for the last two hours. The entire album is very listenable but nothing jumps at me like when Thom screamed “Because…” in 2+2 =5

I am comparing this album with its predecessors, which might be unfair. I have not stopped listening to it for two days solid. It is a thoroughly enjoyable album, but when you are genius you will be compared with what you did before and they have done much better.

I am sure I will eat my words…

Peace TheBrr