Listen up: Florence and the Machine, “Lungs”

The appeal of Florence and the Machine is something of an anomaly to me because, though I think there’s something about the band’s recently released album, Lungs that is really irritating, I can’t stop listening to it. I guess, in the historic sense of the genre, that makes it an exemplary pop record.

There’s really nothing that’s all too new here but it’s infectious just the same. Florence and the Machine deals in genre tropes, seemingly written by folks with a music major’s knowledge of perfect pop song structure and aiming at creating tunes that just won’t leave your head [listen to Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) for the most striking example of this effect]. Just the same, frontwoman, Florence Welch has a strong, captivating voice that is, at times, extremely reminiscent of The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan, and her lyrics are probably the single most interesting aspect of the album. Essentially, Florence and the Machine bridges straightforward pastiche with a still novel approach that can’t easily be called derivative (does that make sense?). The group has created an interesting album but one that ultimately sounds like everything else but is still, for some reason, a lively and exciting experience. For example, moments like the bass drum heartbeat and false stop/start of Cosmic Love sure aren’t original, but they are pretty fun regardless.

Between Two Lungs brings a TV On the Radio inspired Feist to mind, combining handclap rhythms and a whimsical vocal performance that seems to keep the potential for advertisement placement firmly in mind. I’m Not Calling You a Liar is a hypnotic blend of harp plucking and multi-layered vocal tracks, using that old cardiac bass thumping yet again.  Blinding and it’s application of combined pizzicato and swelling string layers makes for a catchy song. The pounding toms and sparse piano chords of Howl give away to sugary-sweet synth strings and, ultimately, create one of the album’s most memorable tracks.

That’s about it. No superlatives or praise necessary. This isn’t that kind of album. Lungs simply serves its seemingly utilitarian purpose; playing through its tracks, entertaining listeners and not busying itself with inspiring any major emotional response.

I can’t recommend Florence and the Machine’s Lungs to everyone but I’m sure this album will emerge as the guilty pleasure of many a listener throughout the year (unless the group is still “indie enough” to make it acceptable listening). It’s worth a listen and is probably an album that will stand in posterity as a breakthrough success for a band with legs enough to carry a lengthy career.

— Reid

I read: “Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy

“Dust stanched the wet and naked heads of the scalped who with the fringe of hair below their wounds and tonsured to the bone now lay like maimed and naked monks in the bloodslaked dust and everywhere the dying groaned and gibbered and horses lay screaming.”

— Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West, by Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy is a ridiculously talented writer and Blood Meridian is considered by many to be his defining work (thus far). Having finished it a few weeks ago, and still being unable to get it out of my head ever since putting it down, I don’t think the book’s praise is just hyperbole.

Blood Meridian is set in the mid 1800s on the American-Mexican borderlands and follows a fourteen year-old protagonist, known only as the kid, as he falls in with the Glanton gang, a group of roving scalp hunters, literally forging their American dream through the murder of countless Native Americans men, women and children. McCarthy’s minimalist prose is at its most effective here, the utilitarian descriptions of chilling scenes working to create a feeling of blase inhumanity and desolation that dwarfs even his latest novel, The Road.

The most memorable character is that of Judge Holden, the Captain Ahab to Blood Meridian’s Moby Dick but McCarthy writes his capitalist monster as something much more immoral than the obsessive whaler, regularly detailing the gang’s key member as a ruthless killer, remorseless pedophile and cunning, cold-blooded intellectual. The kid and the judge emerge as opposing characters but, as McCarthy echoes Melville, it becomes more and more obvious that there is no fitting defeat in sight for Blood Meridian’s depiction of evil and that even the “moral compass” of the story is so warped by his experiences that the only conclusion possible for him is to sink further into the abyss.

If readers fail to look at the larger goal of the novel it’s easy to wonder at the purpose of slogging through so much (seemingly aimless) violence and overwhelming horror. The above quote is one of the tamer conclusions to the text’s frequent scenes of massacre and its easy to get lost in the macabre that McCarthy employs so effectively. Those who are unable to make it through some of the more vicious sequences will miss out on the intended effect of the work however and lose out on experiencing one of the most nuanced and expertly crafted books of the 20th century.

Blood Meridian is a difficult book in many senses, demanding the reader’s ability to tolerate its frequent, stomach-churning violence and often aimless plot pacing, but its ultimate result makes the effort worth it. Cormac McCarthy is one of the few writers working today that will be discussed for generations to come and Blood Meridian earns a place as an American classic that will find ongoing critical company alongside heavyweights like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick.

There’s a lot to say about the work but these 500 odd words will have to suffice for now. Although it’s not for everyone, Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West is, if nothing else, one of the landmark novels of our generation.

— Reid

Listen up: Baroness, “Blue Record”

I’m wary about metal and the -core genres in general but there are great bands around that are definitely hard-as-nails. Recently, the only one I still listen to a lot is Mastodon, most of my fondness for the genre going further back to straightahead acts like Slayer or reaching out into proggier places and straying too far from the title to be included. Now, with another fantastic metal/hardcore/whatever group from Georgia; Savannah’s Baroness and the release of Blue Record, I think I’ve found another contender for my current favourite record to play obnoxiously loud.

Blue Record plays out with equal parts melodrama and pure passion, combining frequent ’80s guitar tones with the more modern metal sensibilities of grit and unorthodox rhythmic stomp. Much like Mastodon’s output, Baroness retain an interesting sound for their refusal to let any bar pass by without the injection of interesting dynamics (whether from production or instrumental arrangement) and a constant devotion to the creation of deep, sweaty grooves that emerge from under layers of excessive drumming, guitar and bass work. This aesthetic is well employed on Blue Record, creating a varied and consistently engaging experience from start to finish.

Jake Leg is one of the album’s outstanding tracks, opening with a taut set of tom rolls and Middle Eastern guitar licks before briefly venturing into fuzz-psych territory and then opening up into a bleak vista of deep but twitchy pockets. Swollen and Halo’s chord progression and eclectic catalogue of guitar and bass tones is another favourite, opening much like a Grunge Era chart topper and then bridging the pop spectrum to flirt with stinging Queens of the Stone Age guitars or the pulsing, overdriven bass and snare and hi-hat work so characteristic of dance rock. War, Wisdom and Rhyme is yet another great song, featuring choruses draped in static, a solid, rock-out, guitar solo ending and lyrics with massive, shoutalong vocals.

Baroness and Blue Record might come off as either too light for the die hard headbangers and too heavy for the average rocker but, for me at least, it’s a great mixture of abrasive and melodic genre sensibilities. Check it out. It’s, if nothing else, one of the most compelling hard rock records I’ve heard this year.

— Reid