Music Review – Coldplay – Viva La Vida

Over the course of the last day, I've gotten a lot of Facebook comments/questions that read like this: "Hey Seth, how's the new Coldplay album"? I've also had a few face to facers: "You listened yet, what do you think?" And finally, my favorite, a voice mail message: "I'm calling to talk about the new album, what else? Call me back."

It seems that I've made it pretty well known that I'm pretty excited about Coldplay's newest release, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends. You might have been riding in a car with me and been abruptly cut off in conversation as I screamed, "turn it off, it's the new Coldplay single, I don't want to hear it." Or maybe you just know me well enough to understand that I breathe in new music and when my favorite band puts something out, I get really, really excited. I mark time throughout the year based on when the next new album is coming out. Tuesdays are my favorite day of the week (because that's when new music comes out….oh, and because that's when the INN is!).

So, here's the review. I've listened to the album about 5 or 6 times now. I had waited, not listening to any of the tracks, until I could hear it all in its entirety. And I'm real happy about that. Now that I have the CD and the vinyl, I've been able to sit back and take it in. Enough about my idiosyncrasies, here's what I think about it:

Bleeding out a sense of renewed creativity, the band has opened themselves up to wider ranging styles, all within the traditional Coldplay sound. This album has been described as something new entirely, apart from the first three albums which according to the band can be viewed as a trilogy. Recorded "in a bakery, a nunnery, a magic shop, a church", the album stretches into new territory. Reportedly influenced by their extended stays in Latin American during their touring for X&Y, you can hear the willingness to leave the old ways formulas and try something new. The departure and new advances start right away with the semi-instrumental "Life in Technicolor". You can hear a bit of the old anthematic Coldplay here, but something a bit more rhythmic, more organic, and very fresh.

Dealing with the topic of death throughout the album, Chris Martin's lyrics attempt to tell a variety of stories of time running out, ghosts among us, fighting the battle until the end, not giving in. There's also a considerable amount of life after death allusions, attempts to describe where he thinks he'll end up. As he hears Jerusalem bells ringing, Roman Cavalry choirs singing on the title track, Martin's pretty sure "Saint Peter won't call my name". The melancholy, slightly pessimistic feel of Coldplay plows on.

However, with the darker lyrical and thematic content, love continues to shine through as a strong anthem for the band. Songs like "Lovers In Japan/Reign of Love" and "Strawberry Swing" illustrate that the good things de la Vida are still enough to pull us through. And along with love, the cry of the revolution calls for a good fight against death, against that which pulls us down. "Violet Hill" is a great first single, strong, powerful, full of some good 'ol revolutionary angst.

Coldplay gets a lot of flack for being too proud, too much like other big bands like U2 or Radiohead, too sleepy, too produced, too flimsy. And of course, I can see some of that. Sure, there's a lot of material on this album that you can clearly trace to their influences. Just like with a song like "Kingdom Come", though, from the X&Y album, Coldplay takes an influence who should be imitated only with the utmost care and caution (in this case Johnny Cash) and pays homage in style and sound, in a way that illustrates respect, honor, and the desire to follow in the footsteps of greatness while also trying to build their own new roads. I'm no professional musician, but I do know that how I play music, how I sing, is influenced heavily by the people I listen to and love. I think if it's done carefully and done well, songs and albums that reflect the deeper, historic musical influences on our lives are incredibly worthwhile.

Here's the lowdown: I think Viva La Vida is a great album. It's not groundbreaking like Parachutes, but it is a welcome followup to X&Y and a wonderful step forward for a band that leads the pack of popular music at this time. It was worth the wait, worth the anticipation, and, like a good bottle of wine, will hopefully continue to open up with each listen. It's not overly complex, but the direction it takes the band is exciting and I'm hopeful for the new era of Coldplay, their nueva Vida.

Favorite Tracks: "Yes", "Lost!", and "Violet Hill"

4 hours and the beginning of summer

Well folks, I'm starting to get pretty excited. It's 4 hours 'til midnight. Coldplay's new album, Viva La Vida Or Death and All His Friends, will be released tomorrow. I'm hoping iTunes will push the button for the east coast and I'll get to listen in about an hour, but I'm not getting my hopes too high.

I'll be posting a review of the album as soon as I've actually listened to it. So far, I've done a pretty good job of "saving myself" for this first listen today. I've heard about 5 seconds of the single, "Violet Hill" and about 45 seconds of another song of the album today at the music store, but otherwise I've been keeping my ears closed for the first full listen. I'll take notes, write something up, and share it as soon as it's ready. I hope it's good, though I hear mixed reviews. I'm not one to listen too heavily to the popular media's take on what I like as far as music goes, so I'll be making my own mind up upon my listening.

In other news, tonight's the first Monday night of summer. Stacy is down in San Francisco, taking a short vacation with a couple of her teacher friends. I've had a pretty good day, pretty quiet around here. I went to my very first Yoga class today, which was fun. I'll try to write something up for that once I really get a feel for whether I like it or not. I've also done a bunch of start-of-the-summer errands, watched more of the West Wing, and I'm plowing my way through The Subtle Knife. Life is good. I'm glad summer's here.

Dana Little – Concert Friday – 7pm @ the Lettered Streets

Local songwriter and piano player, and friend, Dana Little is playing this Friday at the Lettered Streets Coffeehouse in Bellingham. Dana, formerly of Late Tuesday fame, is kicking off some summer shows with an intimate gathering at Bellingham's newest and coolest coffee shop. The concert is at 7pm at 1001 Dupont Street, over by the court house in Bellingham. If you're in the area this weekend, you should totally stop by!

I've had the opportunity to get to know Dana over the past few years because of our mutual connections to music at First Pres. She is very talented and has been a good friend to the INN over the years, helping out with our Christmas program up on campus and other concerts for as long as I can remember. Recently, she and I have been working together to put some of her summer shows together, so I've gotten to know her a bit more and I'm really excited about her new music.

The concert on Friday is free and open to all. If you're around and looking for something to do this Friday night, come by. There will be two sets, one at 7pm and one at 8pm, so even if you're running late, you'll get to hear some great music.

Finally, if you haven't heard Dana in a while (or ever), check out her MySpace page and listen to a few tracks: www.myspace.com/danalittlemusic

Music Review – Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs

"Hi. We’re Death Cab for Cutie. We think it might be worthwhile re-introducing ourselves, because we just released our newest full length album. And it doesn’t really sound like us. Or at least you might not think so. So, pleased to meet you once again."

Here’s the first review I was eluding to with yesterday’s post. I’m just wrapping up my first listening to "Narrow Stairs", the newest offering from Bellingham’s-own Death Cab for Cutie. Thanks to an iTunes pre-order, I’m listening to the deluxe edition before the release date, which clicks over in about an hour. So, that’s cool. But let’s get to the album.

I’ve been reading, over the past few weeks, that this new album might ruffle a few feathers, might make people uneasy, might not quite be what people expect. They’re saying things like "some people might not like this album". I like the line in the last track, "The Ice Is Getting Thinner": "we’re not the same dear, as we used to be |
The seasons have changed and so have we." There’s definitely something different going on here and it seems like they’re ok with admitting it. For one, the band seems a whole lot more aggressive on this album than any of the past. Where songs like "The New Year" and "Crooked Teeth" (of previous albums) had some "piss and drive" to them, they pale in comparison to the kick in the teeth that "Bixby Canyon Bridge", "Long Division", and "Pity and Fear" throw at you.

The other note I’ve heard again and again with regards to this album is about frontman Ben Gibbard’s rediscovery of the guitar. Whereas Plans, their last release, had very little distorted guitar, Narrow Stairs is saturated with long, sustained power fed by heavy distortion. This kicks the band up a notch as they shake off some of their old standby styles for a fresh look at their sound. Embracing new sonic perspectives, with songs like "I Will Posses Your Heart" (the 8 minute long jam) and "Pity and Fear" (a little more sitar, please), the band moves into uncharted territory, unexplored landscapes of sound that I’ve only heard them dance around on previous albums and mildly entertain in their live performances.

Stand out tracks, for me, have to be "Bixby Canyon Bridge", a tale of Gibbard’s soul-searching journey to meet up with Jack Kerouac’s spirit in Big Sur, CA; "I Will Posses Your Heart", the creepy stalker tale that just doesn’t go away (8:35 minutes of building, layered, sonic mess sweetness that isn’t half bad as a single); and "The Ice Is Getting Thinner", because while they depart stylistically through the middle half of the album, exploring way too many major keys and bright harmonies than one would expect from a grey-skied Bellingham/Seattle band, they return home to dark, sparse, and brooding to close the album.

It’s a different game. They’ve decided to change the rules a bit. This isn’t the Postal Service, it’s not Plans, and yet, it is the proper evolution. These guys, who I saw when they played the Viking Union at WWU my freshmen year of college, showing off their new release, The Photo Album, have changed. And that’s alright.

PS: I’ll be interested what a few more listens will bring out. I always a need a few times around to get it really settled in my mind. We’ll see what happens, I suppose.

Music Review – Jimmy Eat World – Deluxe Edition

Whatever it takes to get the blogging juices flowing again, I think I’m going to try a music review. I’m thinking it’d be a good idea to prime the pump for a couple of albums I’m really looking forward to that come out in the next month or so, so why not start with a deluxe edition, reissue, b-sides disc of one of my favorite bands?

Originally release in 2001, Jimmy Eat World’s major label debut "Bleed American" lingered in my Volkswagen Golf CD player for quite a long time. A soundtrack to senior year of high school (along with lesser-wonders Blink 182 and New Found Glory), this was album was a bright star in the mess of pop-punk, hormonally-influenced snot-rock that I spent a lot of time listening to. There was something different about the energy and drive behind songs like "Sweetness", "A Praise Chorus", and "Your House". I felt pretty cool for starting to listen to these guys before their songs started getting major radio play. After seeing a summer concert at the Gorge (in which they opened for the aforementioned bands), they began to hold a very special place in my heart.

This album’s life took a pretty significant turn, as did a lot of popular culture, on 9/11/2001. The original title, "Bleed American", also the name for the lead single, didn’t quite cut if for politically-correctness in a time where we had a lot of people talking about our nation’s insecurities. So, with a huge marketing push, led by excited college kids like myself, and a reissue of the album under the name "Jimmy Eat World", they salvaged the success of the album. "The Middle" became our anthem, however much any of my generation never wants to hear that song again, and helped us know that we’d get through whatever was going on. The big ideas, the big heart of this album became a rally cry of a bunch of kids who were trying to figure out what to do with their world which all of a sudden had threats of war, uncertainty of security and safety, not to mention the first quarter of college classes and dorm food.

Fast forward 7 years and 2 more albums. After modest success with "Futures" and riding on the tails of "Chase This Light", Jimmy Eat World has re-released a deluxe edition of "Bleed American". The album not only features the original artwork with the former title, it also includes an 18-track second disc of rarities, b-sides, and live tracks. Being the fiend for downloading b-sides and live tracks that I am, I already have a lot of these songs on MP3. But all combined into a full second album, these tracks help complete the full picture of all this album became, way back then. Stand out tracks include "Firestarter" (a Prodigy cover), "Last Christmas" (everyone’s favorite cover of Wham!’s holiday love anthem), and a reworked version of "Your House", which the band debuted on the "Chase this Light" tour last fall. I have to say, the new rendition of "Your House" live was one of the high points of their show at WWU last October. All together, it’s a disc for fans who want to see it all.

My top 10 list of albums is always evolving, kicking out stuff that I said "I’ll love forever" and taking in a new gem here and there. One album that has stayed with me for a long while is "Bleed American". It’s one of those albums that speaks to a special place and time in my life. It’s one I can hear blaring off the prison-white hallway in Nash Hall. It’s an album that knew me back when I was blowing my grandpa’s old Blaupunkt speakers in a 1987 Golf. Maybe you know what this feels like to have a special album like this to listen to. "If you don’t well, honey, then you don’t".

Coldplay’s new single, “Violet Hill”, for free

"Violet Hill", the first single from the long-awaited fourth studio album from Coldplay, is now available for free download at www.coldplay.com. The album comes out June 17 in the US. I’m pretty excited. I know how I’m going to kick off the first week of my summer – sit indoors with my headphones on!

I’m still deciding whether or not I will listen to the song before the whole album is released, but I’ve got it at least. It’s also being released as a limited edition 7" vinyl record in this month’s NME magazine, which I’ve got coming in the mail. Maybe I’ll listen to the vinyl…who knows. I’m kinda wanting to just wait and savor it all when it’s released.

Check it out and let me know what you think. www.coldplay.com

Sgt. Pepper’s and the White Album

    

I’m currently sitting on the floor of my living room, plugged into my CD player, listening to the opening tracks of "The Beatles" (aka the White Album). It’s a very good experience, let me tell you.

I’ve had a slight fascination with the Beatles for quite some time, but I’ve never really spent much time engaging their music. I just know they influence so much of what I listen to (British rock, American indie rock) that at some point, I have to give them some attention. So here it is. Yesterday I picked up two albums, "Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band" and the "White Album".

So far, I think I’ve listened through "Sgt. Pepper’s" 3 times in the last 24 hours. Twice with the iPod and the Bose headphones and once through my parent’s old Koss K-6 stereo headphones with the CD in my old Panasonic disc man. Now, we’re on to disc 1 of the "White Album", back to the Bose headphones, still sticking with the CD, because I haven’t ripped it onto the computer. And, as Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da comes on, I’m very happy with this moment.

There’s so much influence and history bottled up in these songs. The way our musical culture has been shaped by artists of this period is so hard to ignore. While I listen to old albums like this, I like to sit and read up on their history on good ‘ol Wikipedia. Where’d they record this? What techniques were special to this recording? It’s interesting that the "Sgt. Pepper’s" album is seen as one of the last "united" efforts by the four members of the band, before the real strife began, which is much more characteristic of the "White Album" recordings.

Some of my curiosity with the Beatles at this point is coming from my recent viewing of "Across the Universe", a great new musical that came out last year. Stacy and I watched this a couple weeks ago and loved it and since then I’ve been on this fascinated kick with the Beatles. Up to this point, I’ve really only had interactions with their music in the same way many of us have – over the cheap elevator speakers (so sad), on the radio, in the background. I haven’t really spent much concentrated time just listening to their work. One exception, and a very memorable one for me, was when I bought the "1’s" album at the Times Square Virgin Records store in New York City, senior year of high school. We were there for a choir performance over Martin Luther King weekend. Riding around in that tour bus, staring out the window, seeing the city for the first time, with this same CD player I sit here with tonight, listening to the spanning #1 hits of the Beatles, driving past John Lennon’s house, it sticks with me.

I’m excited for more memories to be formed with this music. Anyone else there have a Beatles album that sticks out to them? An experience they remember about hearing their music? I know some parents, in-laws, maybe even grandparents who read this blog might remember their impact a little more vividly. I’d love to hear your stories.

** Update: I went back to the Koss headphones for disc 2 of the "White Album" just for kicks.

It’s Christmastime – Incarnation

Just before Christmas, I wrote about how a friend of mine, Corbin Watkins, was getting ready to release his first Christmas album, Incarnation. It’s been a couple of crazy months and now, Christmas is finally here. And the album we should all be listening to around the tree is here as well. It’s been really great to hear Corban as he’s been putting all the pieces together from this whole album/creative process and it’s great to have it all come together in this whole as it is.

The album is called "Incarnation" and it comes in two parts, each representing a "side" (Side Fa and Side La) of what will hopefully become an LP record of the album.

And, it’s free. You can download it right this very instant and find yourself in the Christmas season all over again. Check out corbinw.com for more info or download both sides below. Enjoy!

Thanks Corban.

music moving

Soft picking of a guitar begins, slowly meandering along, becoming an interlude. Each note weaves into the next, each word bleeds out from the last. In and out, like deep breaths, an outpouring of story, of fact and fiction, of feeling and faith. It seems like chance that these words would play off one another as they do, evoking emotions and answering the questions that gave them life.

It repeats – over and over – pattern layered upon pattern, forming this auditory experience. Three or four notes. Just three or four notes – but their presence – their life – is filling the whole room. Mathematics, physics, brain matter, biology, and spirit combining, melding, overlapping, complementing….creating.

Cords, cables, jacks, headphones, speakers, stop, start, repeat. A soft buzz in the left channel. The reverberation of a string just slightly out of tune. A cough. A scratch. All giving way to harmony. Imperfections fading as our brains fill in the space. Putting all the jumbled pieces, the timbre, rhythm, tempo, pitch all together. Knowing the sounds. Soaking them in. Recognizing their shape. Wrapping up in their warmth.

The melody travels along. It leads to a place far away from the steering wheel, away from the desk chair, away from the cold streets. At once it draws towards somewhere foreign, somewhere unexpected and unpredictable, but at the same time, somewhere that feels like home. The rules of the song are there, directing the journey. Where each step leads is unknown, but the destination is surprisingly familiar.

How can one song do so much to us?

I gave you my life and more
From sadness to sunshine I’m yours.

New Death Cab for Cutie Album

The band has posted a new teaser video from their recording studio footage, announcing their new album will be in stores in May. Exciting. Check it out.