With the album just released, now might be a good time to finish the review (began here, here, here and here) with a a long last spurt of energy, before I go back and write a complete review in a coupla days. I did read Jeremy Gordon’s review in Pitchfork (here) and thought it was pretty darn good as well… except, I wonder how much of all this written with this much foresight at the beginning as it appears to have. About none is my bet.
23 – I’m Going Insane (Finish Him) – Heads down no nonsense into the void punk rock – B+
24 – The Fall – An instrumental where the waking other life, previous existent, double up, and take a trip to Ireland, and oh, and PS mentions it also means it is Autumn (the fall -geddit). Apparently Autumn follows New Year’s Eve here – C+
25 – Into The Void (Filler) – “There’s a certain kind of man who can’t raise a son, he can’t even take care of himself let alone anyone else,” Patrick is living my life. The song itself is a wordy stormer and a scary number as Our Hero finally does lose his mind (again) with thoughts of failure and assassination. The heart of punk with interlocking guitars and a raging against the dark – A
26 – No Future Part V: In Endless Dreaming – My fave of the five “No Future” songs remains the first one, and this song as a song, it is a piano ballad in which the end of “No Future” works as well, and the Hero and the Lookalike come to an end with tragic suicide. Patrick, who to paraphrase young Tom Waits, is innocent when he dreams, invites you into the long goodbye – B+
27 – Seven Seconds
28 – Stable Boy – Here we go, written for Siobhan? Or Me? Our hero is stable in death, the one place where humans are forever and the one time Our Hero is not manic, but rather, ta dah stable. This is from the Pitchfork review: “Over a weeping chord organ, Stickles gazes at the yawning void of “forever” and decides that for all life’s dissatisfaction, ’tis better to have lived than not at all.”. Which reminds me of the old Woody Allen joke that opens Annie Hall, about a hotel where the food is lousy and the servings are too small.
29 – A Moral – In which the sound (“A unison note (sung by an extensively multi-tracked Carrie-Anne Murphy) is swallowed by a twelve-note mother chord (arranged by Owen Pallett and performed by Patrick Stickles on electric guitar, EBow, MXR Pitch Transposer”) sends us straight back to the beginning “The Angry Hour” in an eternal loop – B
So that is it, and now, if you’ve been paying attention, you may be ready to listen to it as a whole. What Patrick has created is the cycle of manic depression in five acts, with the constant his rough, hoarse vocals and singalongs battling nihilism.
When I return to the album in a coupla days I will take another look at it as a whole.
Meanwhile: “I like people who dream or talk to themselves interminably; I like them, for they are doubles. They are here and elsewhere.” – Albert Camus
Grade: A-
