Your Favorite Weapon

[Triple Crow; 2001]

I remember when I was a kid I had the ability to jump off of ledges, cars, and flights of stairs, land any which way, and pop back up, tousled, bruised, laughing.  I’m not an old geezer or anything but I don’t jump off stuff anymore because just the thought of it makes me kind of tired.

Listening to this album brings about the same feeling of youth, reckless abandon, the acceptance and even enjoyment of the scrapes and bruises of life.  And it delivers track after track of it, a torrent of joyful angst.  You’ll be hard pressed to find one second of silence on the whole record, as the final chord of one song leads into the fast picking intro of the next.  The production values of this record are not high.  It’s loose, dirty, off the cuff.  But trust me, you wouldn’t want it any other way (witness the far less enjoyable Brand New hi-fi follow-ups.  These guys sound like the guys who played at your high school Battle of the Bands.  But you loved those guys.

Have you ever been so excited to get somewhere that you can’t help but breaking into a run?  That’s the pace most of these songs.  They seem to almost trip over themselves in a rush to get to the next chorus, harmony, or any old chance to make noise.  You are in serious sing-along territory with this record.  Go with it.

What separates the conventional chords, riffs, and lead guitar from the glut of pop-punk bands is songwriter Jesse Lacey’s inspired lyrics.  These are the kind of things I never knew I wanted to say in high school, but I should have.  Consider the following from the epic Seventy Times Seven:

Is that what you call tact?

You’re as subtle as a brick in the small of my back

So let’s end this call and end this conversation

And is that what you call a getaway?

Tell me what you got away with…

Cause you left the frays from the ties you severed

when you say “best friends” means friends forever.

Is that what you call a getaway?

Tell me what you got away with…

Cause I’ve seen more spine on jellyfish,

I’ve seen more guts on eleven-year-old kids.

Have another drink and drive yourself home,

I hope there’s ice on all the roads.

And you can think of me when you forget your seatbelt,

then when your head goes through the windshield.

Yes, he’s talking about wishing his best friend would die in a drunk driving accident.  But that’s how you really feel when your best friend hooks up with your high school girlfriend.  The fact that the sentiment is said so poetically, with such musical punch and authenticity, is what makes this album a must listen.  And these incredible lyrical passages drop out of nowhere every three minutes or so, making you say, “yes, that’s exactly what I meant to say.”

Make no mistake, this is a record made by 18 year old kids dealing with 18 year old problems.  Lust, mixtapes, your best friend sleeping with your girlfriend, procrastination, a general lack of direction.  But it is pulled off with such authenticity and sloppy skill that it’s impossible not to love it.  After all, you were 18 once.  And it felt like this.

Great songs, great lyrics, no throwaway tracks.  A Long Playing Maxi Groove record!

d(-_-)b

Patrick

Spoon is a hardworking band that consistently puts out good music, but of their many albums only Kill the Moonlight qualifies for LPMG approval. It’s 12 flawless tracks feel like they spent a few months in the urban wilderness and came out lean, sinewy, and slightly insane.

The defining word for this record is sparse. Spoon is a band that does not fear the sight of an equalizer bar down near 0. The band utilizes effects on everything, guitar, keyboards, bass, a variety of electronic and real drums, and the lead singer Britt Daniel’s voice. However, it is a rare moment when more than 3 instruments are playing at once. Even the vocals can’t be trusted, as they flit in and out of both audibility and comprehension. Despite the minor chords and pervading sense of late-nightedness this is a joyful creation. Kill the Moonlight plays out in that sloppy/happy zone of feeling like you’ve had too much to drink and debating whether you’re still ok to drive home.

Spoon consists of very accomplished musicians, and it’s a huge compliment that despite their obvious skill they manage to sound like a young, fresh garage band. The production is kept loose and free-flowing, with the sound of tambourines being picked up, conversation between band members, count-ins, and the overall feeling of very talented people having fun playing music they love.

Each track has a different moment to love, and despite the skin and bones construction of the record, it never feels repetitive. For all of its white space the beat somehow never gets dropped, there is a thematic cohesion to the 12 tracks, and you find yourself at the end of the album before you know it. Which is a sure sign that you’ve got a LongPlayingMaxiGroove record on your hands. Last orders have been downed, the bar is closed, enjoy this 35 minute shamble home down poorly lit streets you’ll grow to love. d(-_-)b

Patrick Reynolds

The Comfort of Home is a bittersweet record in that it represents the high point and curtain call of the Southern California band Rufio.  A few years following it’s release the four members went their separate ways and predictably had less successful outings with solo and side projects.

The first thing you will notice about this record is it’s density.  At times it seems there isn’t a 16th note that isn’t heavily layered with multiple guitar parts, driving bass, drum rolls, and doubled vocals.  Yet its density never translates into heaviness.

Rufio is often filed under “punk,” “pop-punk,” or “melodic punk.”  However a close listen reveals that the underlying structure is indebted more to heavy metal than punk.  There is a rich virtuosity to the twin guitar attack that starts from the opening bars and doesn’t let up over 16 tracks. Arpeggios constantly ripple above and below the melody, strum patterns change freely, and there are little surprises around every corner.  Where most punk bands would thump along at four power chords a measure, Rufio fills in every inch of space with tight, inspired guitar riffs.

What makes this different from any of the dozens of high-speed guitar wankage metal records is that Rufio sticks firmly in sonic palette of pop. This is a world of major chords, soaring harmonies, and hook after hook after hook.  All played very, very fast.

Most bands would kill for just two or three of the catchy songs that make up this album.  Rufio delivers them by the dozen.  This is one of the records where you listen to the first track and think, “Damn, I love this song.”  The second track starts up and you find yourself thinking “Damn, I love this song too.”  This continues for the next 40 minutes or so.

The Comfort of Home does contain three instrumental tracks, which is usually a disqualifier on LongPlayingMaxiGroove.  However, I find that these short tracks add to the overall record, as they give you a chance to catch your breath amidst the guitar assault.  These instrumentals start to feel more like intros for the songs they come before, which, considering that most songs clock in under 3 minutes, is not a problem.

When I have a long ride on a crowded Tokyo train, I know I can put The Comfort of Home on and bury my ipod deep in my bag, because the skip button will not be needed.  It’s one of the jewels of the punk/emo era, and LongPlayingMaxiGroove approved.  Enjoy!  d(-_-)b

Patrick Reynolds

If You’re Feeling Sinister does that rarest of things, it takes you to a place and time without any hint of leading you there.  In this case that place is mid-90’s Glasgow, and more specifically, the brain of Stuart Murdoch trying to make sense of life in mid 90’s Glasgow.  The record oozes the kind gloomy optimism that only blooms in dreary northern climes.  No instrument is played too freely, no vocal is given full throat, and there is a level of organic detail in this record that could only come from rainy afternoons where time stretches on forever and ever.

We all have a side of ourselves that is weirdly dopey.  This is the aspect of our character that sings in the shower, that dances in an empty house, that imagines marrying people we only just met.  Personally, I like to look at myself in the reflection of teapots so that my mouth is huge and ask in a giant’s voice, “Where’s juuuunior?”  I’ve never told anyone that before, and it wasn’t easy to come out with it either.

But Stuart Murdoch opens the doors to his interior life with such unabashed honesty that it’s impossible not be won over just by the fact that we were invited.  This record is packed with what feels like inside jokes. It’s only after a few listens that you realize these are Murdoch’s inside jokes with himself, and  we are just dipping a toe in his stream of consciousness.

Like most young people, this stream consists of snippets of conversation, dreams, frustrated sexuality, thoughts of friends, and projections of people passed on the street.  There are also just those random thoughts, like “Fox in the snow, where do you go to find something you can eat?”  What makes this album special is the unfiltered nature of the lyrics.  It’s something akin to the guilty pleasure of reading someone else’s diary.

The fact that this interior monologue unspools on top of perfect melody after perfect melody, for 10 straight tracks is awe-inspiring.  Belle and Sebastian are famous for being a “big” band with constantly rotating members, but at the heart of this record and it’s predecessor Tigermilk is the original core of Murdoch on vocals and guitar, Stuart David on Bass, Isobel Campbell on cello, Chris Geddes on keyboards and piano, and Richard Colburn on drums.  

This was essentially a group of Murdoch’s acquaintances that got together to make music just because.  For the full story of the creation of Belle and Sebastian, click here)  The tension of the band members not being “best mates” works marvellously.  Each musician is great at what they do, but is careful not to step on their companion’s notes or vocals.  There is an air of awkward politeness to Belle and Sebastian’s early work, and not unlike overhearing a couple’s first date in the booth next to you, it is quietly thrilling.

Guitar, piano, cello, and violin solos come and go, the drums pick up now and then, but everything is delivered with a hint of restraint.  The band clearly respects Murdoch and is working to deliver his vision, not what they think his vision should be.  The music is layered but not heavy, and one can always feel the empty space of a small studio underneath the chords.

Murdoch himself has lamented the audio quality of If You’re Feeling Sinister, going so far to release a live recording of the entire record on Itunes (If You’re Feeling Sinister - Live at the Barbican) in an effort to provide fans with a higher-def version.  This is unnecessary.  If You’re Feeling Sinister would only be half of it’s glory without the missed notes, the way Murdoch’s harmony lines don’t match the lyrics at points, and the lightness of friends playing music they don’t think anyone would actually pay for.  Every track is as honest and real as music can be. Push play and don’t think about it again, this is truly a LongPlayingMaxiGroove record. d(-_-)b

Patrick Reynolds