In the land of lazily written rock bios for piano-led bands, Ben Folds is forever having illicit relationships with other bands and then having children and/or doing drugs. Whoever this Mrs. G. is, she seems to have some sort of sordid relationship with Mr. F., although the sentiment comes across through the vocal arrangements and not so much the piano playing.“Mrs. G.” brings to mind late era Folds, where he really started getting creative with his vocal harmonies, bringing to the ear an expanse of fully fleshed-out vocal harmonies. Oranjuly’s Brian King brings a warm blanket of vocals to each chorus – what’s he singing? Who cares; so well-realized is the full chord sung by his cloned vocal chords. If this is more than one person singing and they are not relatives, people should immediately begin mailing their wallets to Oranjuly in submission.
The song itself is a pleasantly bumpy affair, punctuated by high-register quarter-note chords on the piano and Motown-style up-jumps on the guitar, both of which jostle playfully with the 1-2 beat of the drums and King’s Folds/Rivers Cuomo clear-as-a-bell vocals. This is just a demo?
It is easy to pick up a guitar and sing your feelings at people, hoping someone cares. Stand By Me (not to be ever at all confused with the 1961 soul song “Stand By Me” or even the 1986 film by Rob Reiner) brings the white-hot emotions of frustration, anger and a little bit of pride, and balls them all up into a hard and potentially injurious ball. This ball, called “This Is the Life We Chose,” is then hurled at the listener, who would feel happy to be scraped by the sharp edges.
Moreso than any controlled “melody,” the vocal shouts of “This Is the Life...” show true and unhinged humanity, free of any of the tidy wrappings of the construct that is currently accepted as the norm when it comes to communicating.
This song is an unusual and interesting sonic experience, it sounds as if the guitar (and ostensibly the vocals) were recorded in the trunk of an old-yet-still-speedy Buick; the kind into which you can fit such things without too much trouble. We would be tempted to say the vocals sound like someone actively demanding to be let out of the trunk, but with the raw power displayed in the vocal track, it sounds unlikely that this man could be kept anywhere against his will.
It is unclear if the “life that we chose” is one with which the artists are happy with or have simply learned to deal. Either way, this song is a strong and powerfully raw expression.
While in the midst of this weird “Summer in Seattle” weather patch, it’s almost disorienting to see the word “autumn” anywhere. The whole autumnal season is further communicated via the sound of “Washing Machine,” a loping swinger of a song that will call to mind dry, crackling leaves and windy country roads moreso than the sounds of beachballs being batted about and the “delighted” screams of teenaged girls being thrown off of docks into ponds.
This song seems to come from an interesting place. It’s something like if Modest Mouse had never bothered moving to the big city and had thusly never been bothered by the big city itself. The vocals are almost lazy, as if casually tossed over the singer’s shoulder every so often rather than directly “sung” to the assembled audience. The gentle swells of a pedal steel and the pluckety-picking banjo round out the whole country affair, but it’s not “country,” per se, rather it’s somewhere just off the beaten path, still accessible to the general thoroughfare, but set back enough that everything seems just a bit more sepia toned than normal
It’s unclear what sort of left-handed compliment being called someone’s “Washing Machine” might be, but the Autumn Hollow makes it sound strangely pleasant. Global warming be damned, “Washing Machine” fast-forwards us through this mid-Summer wet spot and through the July and August and early September months without so much as a temperature bump, throwing us full force into the fall – apple picking, banjo picking, washing machines and all.
In a world where young men have to go onto reality shows to generate and display their own manufactured bluster, it is pleasant to hear an artist with pre-existing swagger strut onto the scene in the form of Jeffrey Simmons.
“Making a Movie” possesses a weird sort of driving spirit, like a musical undercurrent that pushes and pulls the upper levels of the song about. This undercurrent does not take the form of one piece of the song – it is not just the swelling and oddly bending 21-piece-orchestra-that-sounds-like-Mellotron strings or the head-nodding drumbeat, rather it’s something intangible that drives this wave. Simmons’ vocals seem to surf on this wave rather than lead it, directing his syllables to fall into the tiny holes left by the syncopation of the tempo.
Simmons sounds ultimately comfortable in his own skin – provided he is in uniform. “Making a Movie” shows Simmons in his full Sunday best – modern sensibilities coupled with a vintage aesthetic. In this uniform, Simmons marches down the street, through the door and into your living room, ready to make himself (and your self) comfortable in his own brand of polished reality.
Now here's the deal. People are going to see that the name of the band is "Rampant Decay," they're going to see that the lead singer's name is Rich Horror and the title of the song kind of demonstrates to the layman that this music is going to be loud, it's going to be fast and it's going to be violent.
"Liferuiner Massgrave" does not disappoint in any of these senses, but some might be surprised to find out how listenable and, indeed, interesting this song can be to hear. The band has a lot of style; it's not just "saw away at the guitar til you bleed," there are some dynamics and some nice rhythmic accents in the arrangement of this song. The anger is not slathered on so thick that it is campy, but surges with a raw power that is both intimidating and magnetic.
The homerun of this track is the section that starts right around the 1:00 mark, when the entire band gets its druthers together for a descent into hell, and damned if they aren't going to simply take it over when they get there; maybe they'll let Satan stay on as a waterboy or something.
Normally, having one’s true love cut in half by a speeding train is grounds for dissolution of the relationship. This is most definitely not the case in Three Day Threshold’s “Uni,” a tale of true love that is sung mostly in the tense of post-train bisection.
Lead vocalist Kier Byrnes sings, screams, hoots, hollers and generally whoops it up in his own inimitable style throughout the song, which clocks in at a scant 1:58. “Uni” is indicative of Three Day Threshold’s entire existence – high energy, hopelessy hooky and full of musical character. Hearing this song, one can envision Byrnes’ occasionally lifting his huge hat from the crown of his head, half for show and half to let some of the built-up steam come out of his ears.
Byrnes’ red-eyed ranting is backed by the similarly energetic guitar stylings of Colt Thompson (now of Girls, Guns and Glory), who, if not the fastest six-gun in the west, is at least close to the fasted six-string. Thompson’s guitar is as character-laden as Byrnes’ vocal performance, racing around the bends and producing little wisps of smoke that will billow out of your speakers if you listen to this song repeatedly – and you will.
Want to submit your band's song to C.D. On Songs?
To be reviewed in a C.D. On Songs column:
Be a Boston-based band/artist.
Email a single mp3/m4a/etc. (or a download link to one) to cdonsongs (at) gmail (dot) com, with the subject line "C.D. on Songs" (DO NOT send us a bunch of songs and make us pick, we will ignore you). We require a file – not a streaming link.
Include album cover art if you have any. If you don't, a band photo or logo is acceptable.
We will assume that we have your permission to make the song downloadable on Boston Band Crush (readers will want to hear it, after all).
If that's not ok with you, say so and provide us with a link to the song on an embeddable player like ReverbNation – something we can include in the post (and not just link to).
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