The mountains might seem better…
This was authored while I was on vacation, roling through the Rocky Mountains and bein’ reflective.
Right now Jenny and I are driving through the mountains of Alberta on our way to B.C. It was almost this time last year when my trip through the mountains in the dead of night revealed the National’s Boxer to me in such stark light and the trip and the accompanying music has me thinking once again.
The conditions are different right now; I haven’t been alone with my thoughts for the last eight hours hurtling dangerously through the darkness, for one. It isn’t even dark right now. It’s mid-day, but not one of those sun-shiningly reverent mountain mid-days that people are so enamored with. It’s drizzling and it’s been pretty cloudy since we left Calgary, where the rain started. It’s very grey and fairly mirthless right now. Hurtling isn’t an option; gas prices are so ridiculous these days that we’re attempting to “hypermile” by traveling no faster than 90 kph, “ridge riding” on the right white line to get a boost from the vehicles that travel by much faster, enduring the scornful glares of passing oil workers and octogenarians in traveling campers.
Our musical accompaniment for this latest leg of the trip is City & Colour’s latest, Bring Me Your Love. I mentioned in a post a few months back how much more I enjoy Dallas Green’s latest offering over the debut record, Sometimes. It’s ideally suited to rainy days of all kinds, but the openness of the production really lends itself to the simultaneously expansive and claustrophobic skyline of the Rockies. Like Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, the record begins with the sound of the room the recording is about to take place in; the first thing you hear is the clasps on a guitar case being opened, Mr. Green sitting down in front of the microphone(s) and letting fly with a natural, organic recording. That feeling winds it’s way through the rest of the record, replacing the first album’s incredibly sterile and compressed sound with more natural dynamics, leaving the ups and downs firmly in the hand of the performance. His acumen as a finger-picking folk guitarist belies the heavy-handed rock and rolling of his day job and where the first album was in desperate need of more varied accompaniment, it’s actually a distinct pleasure to listen to 90% of this record hinge solely on that playing. Banjo pops up regularly in a backing context, percussion rears its head every once in a while, and there’s even an electric guitar solo. Best of all, the heavy production and compression laid all over Green’s voice on the first album and Alexisonfire’s material is stripped away, making for a far less grating vocal performance than on Sometimes. He reigns it in perfectly when it needs to be and goes for the high notes only when appropriate.
There’s no denying that the best songs – indeed, pretty much all of them – focus on extremely somber subject matter. There are a few instances of heavy-handed over-analysis: “the Death of Me” is a somewhat awkwardly worded hypothetical about whether it’s better to drown your sorrows in a bottle instead of trying to deal with things. “Body In A Box” is a teenage diary entry about how dying is like, so sad and crazy. Aside from those, however, the songs are mostly about feeling sad, broken-hearted, and depressed for a plethora of reasons. Somber is the watchword, but the songs are done in such a way that you actually feel pretty okay about it.
Aside from a couple of lyrically disappointing numbers, the record is a winner, on the whole. Given the fairly rapid output of both Alexisonfire and City & Colour, it will be interesting to see how Green progresses from here.
City and Colour - Forgive Me [2:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download City and Colour - Waiting... [4:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadiTunes: Hear it the way emo music was meant to be heard: digitally, at a less than ideal bitrate.
My Merch Table: CD’s — and tote bags!
I find all his songs to be like teenage diary entries. I’m not a big fan of emo tunage, though, so I guess my mileage varies. He was at Hillside Inside and I was kinda like “Anybody want to leave for some food?” And we’re old and crotchety, so, like, we just don’t get him. Or something. Parents just don’t understand.