(Ed. note: Give a hearty handclap of intro to Quentin Kenny. Hopefully he'll appear around here more often than not. Follow him on Twitter here. Also, remember that time Los Campesinos! called us out on Twitter???)
Los Campesinos!
Romance is Boring
Arts & Crafts, 2010
Review by Quentin Kenny
Los Campesinos!: "There Are Listed Buildings"
Los Campesinos!: "The Sea Is A Good Place To Think of The Future"
This one is simple really: if you liked Los Campesinos! before, then you’ll like their newest, Romance is Boring. Probably a lot. Probably more with each listen. And if you didn’t like them before, this record isn’t going to change your mind. Yeah, that’s a mindless way to start a review (hey, it’s my first day here!) but the sentiment behind it feels oddly foreign in a scene where young artists reach levels of popularity incongruous with their level of experience or talent.
Undoubtedly, there’s growth and maturity and an expansion of sound on Romance is Boring, but those things that define why you feel the way you do about the family Campesinos are still present as well and once again those are the things that stand out. There's the overblown relationship drama, which lends itself to visions of kids using his own lyrics for the sort of bathroom scribblings Gareth himself decries on "We've Got Your Back." There are the accompanying explosions of sound that play like freak-outs, often before leading into massive multi-voiced harmonies.
Underneath it all still bubbles that domineering sense of emotion, ready to detonate at any time. And it's those moments that keep alive the band-despised notion that their music is "twee." (ed: see Twitter intro reference). The label no longer truly fits, but that doesn't make it any easier to ignore.
Amidst all that which reads and can sound like frivolity though, it’s tough to shake the impression that these guys know precisely what they’re doing. Or that what might come across as cacophony is instead quite calculated and reveals only and exactly what the band desires.
Halfway through the great opener, “In Media Res”, there’s a breakdown that does nothing if not reinforce the fact that these kids know more about their influences than I’ll ever begin to comprehend about those same bands. And there’s a subtlety of experience, manifest in how Gareth switches up the cadence in using “inevitably” during the choruses to the immediate favorite “Straight in at 101.”
Unsurprisingly, near every song has at least one of those trademark moments that cause goosebumps. It might come immediately after or during one of those eruptions, but it always demands to be replayed, sung along with at max volume, lingering hours after the stereo has been turned off as you realize you're still humming it. Moments such as the aforementioned breakdown in the opener, the opening plea of “Straight in at 101”, the gang vocals that close the record, or essentially any time a female voice emerges.
Those moments are everywhere and they raise up songs that heretofore felt throwaway. They are the comedown after the blast, but in that composure lies the true vitality of the song. So maybe it isn't necessary that Los Campesinos! always have a method behind their supposed madness, they certainly know how to throw 30 seconds together to make the question inconsequential.
Much has been made, and justifiably so, about Romance is Boring being the third album in 18 months for the band. The more important idea therein may be the rarity of any band making music this fun, this good, and this uncompromisingly emotional so consistently.
Hyperbole and affability aside, Los Campesinos! and their sound continue to grow. And by now, you’re either with them or you’re missing out.
More after the jump...
Sorry to the music side--I'm rocking a lot of lit this week. But read these stories, including one about Charlie's Angels.
"Motel Lives" by Charles Spano: At Opium Mag.
"Free Space" by Paula Ray: At LitSnack.
"Charlie's Angel Lunchbox Thermos" by Carl Wilson: At Significant Objects.
(this is awesome).
"Everyone's Velocity" by Katie Jean Shinkle: At MonkeyBicycle.
More after the jump...
The Unnamed
by Joshua Ferris
Reagan Arthur Books, 2010
If you hear someone describe this book as "about a lawyer," they're lying. This book is no more about a lawyer than McDonald's is about floor tiles. Both entities contain their descriptors, but each is about something completely different. Instead this is a book about impulses, uncontrollable impulses. It's a book of family and commitment and being. It's a book of relationships and marriage and that "I do" phrase. This book is not about a lawyer.
It's also a book about illness, and mental illness. I once read an essay something or another about how recent literature has taken a discernible bent towards dealing with medication and the effects of pharma (someone send me the link...I think it was at n + 1, but I couldn't find it...).
Tim Farnsworth is subjected to bouts of uncontrollable walking. Not pacing, but walking, the kind where he strips halfway down and just goes and goes with no control. Due to this ailment, he is strapped to his bed, he misses work, he leaves places with no announcement or goodbye. He tries and hides this from his workplace, saying that his wife has cancer, but it affects his career, destroys his career.
No one has this certain walking disease, the New England Journal of Medicine can't figure it out, all the specialists this side of the Mayo and Cleveland clinics can't figure it out. Tim is alone in his disease.
But he is not alone in his life. His wife picks him from far off distances, his daughter Becka becomes a babysitter for her father. He misses large chunks of their life from work, and then eventually misses large chunks of their lives due to his walking.
Eventually, Tim ventures on his own, alone to handle the disease. Ferris rightly details the frantic nature of Tim's walking and the scant details he is able to retain, finding himself in public parks and baseball fields, this is where the genius of Ferris is really evident. It's the third section, second chapter and it is descriptive, it is fast, it is perfectly applicable to Tim's situation, it is some of the best writing I've seen in awhile. An excellent combination of anyplace-highway land and the menacing rambling thoughts of Tim that mixes his lawyer-ese with bouts of soul-bashing, it is a stumble into madness, physical breakdown and loneliness.
Ferris, like in his previous novel, is deft at changing pace and perspective. We see Tim, then his wife Jane, their stories told separately in some sections, but intermingling where appropriate. The third-person narrator that Ferris invokes is sometimes unreliable to great effect, such as Tim meeting an old friend in a restaurant, and I'll leave it at that.
Tim is obstinate, but also afflicted. His disease causes pain on others, he eventually learns how to handle it, with a potent pharma-cocktail. Then, in many ways, it's too late.
There are some disappointments here. Tim's disease described is vague and unknown, but it's almost too much so. Tim walks a lot, why can't he stop and talk to someone? Why does he end up in random places, why doesn't he just turn back around? Why doesn't a treadmill work very well? Why can't he walk laps or in a specific area? Simple questions like those are never fully addressed, the reader is just expected to be in agreement, the suspension of belief almost too great to get at Ferris' main point---the bounds of marriage.
There are some mixed reviews, but most of those come from too many comparisons to the "other" work, a clever conceit with a lot of funny moments. This is not more of the same, there is really nothing funny or humorous at all.
But this is a book that Save(s) Ferris from just being a gimmick. It would have been easy for Ferris to take the Max Barry route, writing clever corporation satire one after another in a time and place where that is vogue. This firmly puts Ferris on the other side of the fence, into that "serious" writer side. I would be surprised if some consider this book better than Then We Came...but that doesn't matter. Because Ferris puts his career in a steady upward trajectory with this one, it builds and diversifies at the same time. If people doubted Ferris before, The Unnamed shows Ferris to be no joke.
More after the jump...
Pianos Become The Teeth
Old Pride
Topshelf Records, 2010
Pianos Become The Teeth: "Filial"
Surprised at this release, like the time I went to the mall and the pretzels weren't stale. Like that time. I say "stale" because that's my new fear in this genre--the screamo genre, essentially. It catapulted up the ranks (did it not?) of popularity for the young set, a steady fad of the early 2000s, bands spreading from each and every way like unwanted crabgrass.
Notice, though, I said "surprised" and the words "weren't stale." Because Baltimore's Pianos Become The Teeth isn't stale, yes familiar, but fresh, fresh. What they do differently, than say Emery or even Thursday's last release, is they actually know how to play their instruments, how to craft their favorite sounds into a unified organism, to maintain their post-rock-emo-hardcore influences but expand on them.
For sure there is a heavy Fear Before The March of Flames emphasis, older Alexisonfire, but also a significant dose of more math and post-rock blends. What's downplayed are the pop-punk-rock elements, really it glides from nice math rock proclivities into hardcore very quickly, eschewing some of the typical rote elements that would bog down lesser bands.
Pianos excels with the opener "Filial," an all-encompassing post-rock number, but then moves into the screamo category with "Quit Benefit" and "Sleepshaker," the latter song being something that Thursday needs to look at to freshen their sound a bit--the intro is all-on percussion, the guitar melody line and bass lines mostly found in the instrumental set like Explosions in the Sky. Pianos Becomes the Teeth combines these two methods in a sound not usually heard, but it should satisfy the intensity of even the hardcore fans. "Pensive" does the same thing, except gentler and more alluring with loud vocals, like playing a game of paintball in Wal-Mart. In the end it's harmless, but still is messy.
Songs like "Cripples Can't Shiver" capturing downbeats like a frozen snow shovel. Rock hard, but steady and ready. Ok, "Jess and Charlie" kind of throws all that out, it's very energetic. And this album is only 8 songs? No matter, it's all fully formed.
Really, Pianos Becomes The Teeth excels on all levels, maybe the choruses could be a bit more defined, more "memorable" (dare I say 'catchy' or does that invalidate everything above?), but don't worry this avoids any of that territory, Pianos doesn't pander. Finally, the screamo genre has moved forward again.
More after the jump...
JD Salinger Double
Why a publisher let him go (w/ George Plimpton): At The Paris Review (h/t Maud Newton)
Walking in Holden Caulfield's shoes: At NY Times
The takedown of Literary Manboys: At Gawker (h/t HTML Giant)
Gary Shteyngart talks Russia: At Jewcy
Interv. w/ David Pearson, designer of the Penguin 'Great Ideas' series: At Print Mag. (h/t Yewknee)
Shya Scanlon on Literary Hustling: At WordHustler
(got this from somebody, forgot who...)
Islamic punk rocker & world traveler & oh yeah, author, Michael Muhammad Knight: At NY Times.
More after the jump...
