eyesbomb
09-25-2004, 06:07 AM
another exception to the rule that I'm gone from the board, just to bring you my review of the new R.E.M. album
"It's quiet now"
Michael suggests it immediately, it's the first of the verses of the new album;
behing three years of wait, two of work and one ahead of tour. the longest they've ever done, in between all this even the 25 years of the band, next 5th of april.
It's quiet, 'Around The Sun', it's an absolutely quiet record because as Mike says "in a slow song there's much more breathing than in a fast one, when you hold the breath 'til the end"; it's a record that I understand how could 'bore' for its being so quiet, thing that if on the other hand nobilited by the necessary cure, capacity of listening, of hearing brings to forget the lack of crazy tracks, fast, brings to take out the sense from it and all that you want it's that same calmness.
Even and initially for this it's a surprising record: it's a record that you have to stay quiet listening from the beginning to the end, with butt or back well held down, without them moving clumsily here and there, but with grace.
It's crazy how much grace there's in this record.
It's a quiet record; sweet, extremely sweet; whispered, almost low; soft, slow; mid-tempo, slight; out of light, out of focus in general and in detail full of details and yet so bright, blinding.
No-R.E.M. record ever had so many details, shades; so little rock, even, there's not a single carrying rock song in the classic sense, in a sense even obvious.
That's it, in 'Around The Sun' there's nothing obvious.
So, what record is this ? I don't know.
A R.E.M. record, right?
I'm not even sure of this: it sounds more different from R.E.M. themselves, if R.E.M. ever been something targetable, pointable, something you can bring on focus at all.
Let me confess you something: R.E.M. don't have a sound.
They never had one.
Peter says that any song, if sung by Michael, becomes an R.E.M. song; I say something else: any R.E.M. song, without Michael's voice, you can't tell it's R.E.M.
Take the most beautiful new song od the band, The Ascent Of Man; then take all the other songs that make this the most beautiful band to exist, like E-bow The Letter, Losing My Religion, Carnival of Sorts, the Lifting, Half A World Away, Drive, Country Feedback.. .
Each one completely different from one another, each one beautiful.
A little like the records, from the first to the last.
Let's get back, to the last.
We were saying, how is it ? I was saying: I don't know.
I don't know because it ain't a rock record, it ain't a pop record, it ain't a verse chorus verse record, it ain't a radio record (with perahps the exception somehow of the first single), most of all it ain't the record you expect, and this is good.
It happened often with their records, very often, and when it didn't happen they were records without a certain ''bite'' (Reckoning, Document, Reveal), without an electric curiosity that listening it made crawl out of head and mouth a "what the fuck?" with a smile printed, on the latter, anyway.
For sure 'Arond The Sun', like all the R.E.M. records, it's a marvellous record.
And it is so for a number of reasons, even silly, even onomatopoeic, like that 'MMmm-mm' incipit of The Outsiders or those 'Yeah' in the already cited masterpiece of the record, The Ascent Of Man.
Another reason is sense
the sense pervading the alchemys of those not-anymore-that-young guys, in four like in three ('cause 'a dog with three legs is still a dog, only has to learn to walk') and the weaves, tracks of the records
Sense, a thing so impalpable and so full of sense, for instance;
'cause a record is never just a record, it's also how Michael loads with timbre and tone a ride of "I Told You, I Love You' singing Leaving New York live.
You may disagree on all this, like you may, if you could, agree that the piano on 'Make It All OK' never was as beautiful as when I heard it the first time ever that song was played by R.E.M., in a soundcheck in Hamburg, and I'm sure both me and you would agree that even in different times the beauty is completely intact.
A beauty that seems always almost there to fall on the ground, fall apart, and then it lifts from the ground, takes off (like in the ending of Outsiders, or in the ending of the ending in the title-track).
It's a beautiful record, more beautiful than the last R.E.M.: more wanted, searched for, found, more spontaneously given.
Softer and stronger.
It's a human record, the most human record R.E.M. ever done, and has human tops like human falls of tone, take Wanderlust ('cause in R.E.M. records there's always a song that i don't like, lately, Parakeet, Beachball, and now this one), take the likely next single Aftermath and take.. erm, I can't thing of more, maybe later, or maybe I'll even love those two I said.
I don't know, like I was saying I don't know a lot of things, and I am yet to discover other ones, even having heard way more than once all this record; for sure there are some hidden things, like on the other hand there are some merciless suave, sassily sweet..
the so delicate melodies, the synthetic and soft beats, the tapering and suffused guitars, the singing of Michael, what Michael sings;
it must take some guts for the greatest lyricist that I know of, cut-up genius more than anyone (sorry, William B.) to sing the words I was telling about before and make them of an out-of-the-way strenght, just like it was the most complicated riddle he ever put on record.
In short, all that I never expected.
In short, all that I really wanted.
The album I am not sure yet of how it is,
but I am sure that I will lsten to it again, and again.
"It's quiet now"
Michael suggests it immediately, it's the first of the verses of the new album;
behing three years of wait, two of work and one ahead of tour. the longest they've ever done, in between all this even the 25 years of the band, next 5th of april.
It's quiet, 'Around The Sun', it's an absolutely quiet record because as Mike says "in a slow song there's much more breathing than in a fast one, when you hold the breath 'til the end"; it's a record that I understand how could 'bore' for its being so quiet, thing that if on the other hand nobilited by the necessary cure, capacity of listening, of hearing brings to forget the lack of crazy tracks, fast, brings to take out the sense from it and all that you want it's that same calmness.
Even and initially for this it's a surprising record: it's a record that you have to stay quiet listening from the beginning to the end, with butt or back well held down, without them moving clumsily here and there, but with grace.
It's crazy how much grace there's in this record.
It's a quiet record; sweet, extremely sweet; whispered, almost low; soft, slow; mid-tempo, slight; out of light, out of focus in general and in detail full of details and yet so bright, blinding.
No-R.E.M. record ever had so many details, shades; so little rock, even, there's not a single carrying rock song in the classic sense, in a sense even obvious.
That's it, in 'Around The Sun' there's nothing obvious.
So, what record is this ? I don't know.
A R.E.M. record, right?
I'm not even sure of this: it sounds more different from R.E.M. themselves, if R.E.M. ever been something targetable, pointable, something you can bring on focus at all.
Let me confess you something: R.E.M. don't have a sound.
They never had one.
Peter says that any song, if sung by Michael, becomes an R.E.M. song; I say something else: any R.E.M. song, without Michael's voice, you can't tell it's R.E.M.
Take the most beautiful new song od the band, The Ascent Of Man; then take all the other songs that make this the most beautiful band to exist, like E-bow The Letter, Losing My Religion, Carnival of Sorts, the Lifting, Half A World Away, Drive, Country Feedback.. .
Each one completely different from one another, each one beautiful.
A little like the records, from the first to the last.
Let's get back, to the last.
We were saying, how is it ? I was saying: I don't know.
I don't know because it ain't a rock record, it ain't a pop record, it ain't a verse chorus verse record, it ain't a radio record (with perahps the exception somehow of the first single), most of all it ain't the record you expect, and this is good.
It happened often with their records, very often, and when it didn't happen they were records without a certain ''bite'' (Reckoning, Document, Reveal), without an electric curiosity that listening it made crawl out of head and mouth a "what the fuck?" with a smile printed, on the latter, anyway.
For sure 'Arond The Sun', like all the R.E.M. records, it's a marvellous record.
And it is so for a number of reasons, even silly, even onomatopoeic, like that 'MMmm-mm' incipit of The Outsiders or those 'Yeah' in the already cited masterpiece of the record, The Ascent Of Man.
Another reason is sense
the sense pervading the alchemys of those not-anymore-that-young guys, in four like in three ('cause 'a dog with three legs is still a dog, only has to learn to walk') and the weaves, tracks of the records
Sense, a thing so impalpable and so full of sense, for instance;
'cause a record is never just a record, it's also how Michael loads with timbre and tone a ride of "I Told You, I Love You' singing Leaving New York live.
You may disagree on all this, like you may, if you could, agree that the piano on 'Make It All OK' never was as beautiful as when I heard it the first time ever that song was played by R.E.M., in a soundcheck in Hamburg, and I'm sure both me and you would agree that even in different times the beauty is completely intact.
A beauty that seems always almost there to fall on the ground, fall apart, and then it lifts from the ground, takes off (like in the ending of Outsiders, or in the ending of the ending in the title-track).
It's a beautiful record, more beautiful than the last R.E.M.: more wanted, searched for, found, more spontaneously given.
Softer and stronger.
It's a human record, the most human record R.E.M. ever done, and has human tops like human falls of tone, take Wanderlust ('cause in R.E.M. records there's always a song that i don't like, lately, Parakeet, Beachball, and now this one), take the likely next single Aftermath and take.. erm, I can't thing of more, maybe later, or maybe I'll even love those two I said.
I don't know, like I was saying I don't know a lot of things, and I am yet to discover other ones, even having heard way more than once all this record; for sure there are some hidden things, like on the other hand there are some merciless suave, sassily sweet..
the so delicate melodies, the synthetic and soft beats, the tapering and suffused guitars, the singing of Michael, what Michael sings;
it must take some guts for the greatest lyricist that I know of, cut-up genius more than anyone (sorry, William B.) to sing the words I was telling about before and make them of an out-of-the-way strenght, just like it was the most complicated riddle he ever put on record.
In short, all that I never expected.
In short, all that I really wanted.
The album I am not sure yet of how it is,
but I am sure that I will lsten to it again, and again.