Tag: indie punk
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Modern Baseball: “The Thrash Particle”
The indie punk, emo punk, or whatever you want to call it band Modern Baseball has released a new single called “The Thrash Particle”. It is unknown whether or not this will be featured on an upcoming album, split, or if it’s just a new stand-alone track. The only thing we know is that Modern Baseball has been working on a more mature sound, and “The Thrash Particle” shows some deep jealousy wounds. Brendan Lukens, lead singer and guitarist, softly speaks about a broken-heart past and how that made him decide to change and be more careful in the future. This Modern Baseball is going the distance with new resolve.
Check out “The Thrash Particle” below, which premiered first on The Fader.
The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die: ‘Harmlessness’
Noted as one of the frontrunners for the emo revival of the 2010s, The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die is a nine piece indie punk band from Connecticut. Their music can be described by their use of confessional lyrics and a large range of instruments that make a “full” band sound. Although their discography includes a lot of EPs with great content on each, the full length albums tell entire stories through the progression of tracks and are highly regarded as an accumulation of the best of TWIABP. Harmlessness is the second studio album to be released by The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die and will be available on Sept. 25, 2015 for purchase. A streaming version of the album is currently available for free on Bandcamp, or you can purchase it digitally for $7.
Harmlessness brings a new chapter for the band by creating a flow of motion from start to finish. The tracks blend into each other so well that the album doesn’t feel like it’s made up of individual songs, it’s more of an elongated soundtrack. The switching of male and female vocals brings depth to the album, and layers of harmonies make the feeling more visceral. An ode to realizing, forgiving and carrying on, Harmlessness is warm-sounding with heavy impact.
Because the themes mentioned in Harmlessness are similar to “Whenever, If Ever”, it’s easy to draw comparisons between the two full-lengths. However, Harmlessness exceeds all expectations. The album draws on floaty riffs that fade into the background and pull forward at just the right times, allowing space for the sweet twangs of the synthesizer to shine through. Every different instrument is used at full potential, with the right sounds pronouncing at the right times to give an unparalleled listening experience.
The album starts with “You Can’t Live There Forever,” a kick-off to ignorance of people in the world around us. With lyrics littered with rhetorical questions, the track ends with the important phrase “we think that the world is alright, and that’s a lie.” It’s interesting to note that the name of the band, The World Is a Beautiful Place, is taken very seriously throughout the lyrics of “Whenever, If Ever” but is torn apart on the first track of Harmlessness. This could be a progression of TWIABP as a band, or possibly a further stab at self-realization through breaking ignorance. Either way, it is a powerful start.
The third track “January 10th, 2014” was released early as a single and is easily one of my favorites from the album. The song draws from the story of Diana the Hunter of Bus Drivers, a woman that killed at least two bus drivers in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico during 2013. The news of the killer spread rapidly through the city, plaguing its citizens with fear of the unknown for months. The track encourages everyone to draw on bravery and hope for something better despite atrocious things that have happened in the past, citing the killer as an example of past horrors. “We are brave and strong, but don’t you quiver.”
Another special mention should be made for the final two tracks on Harmlessness. “I Can Be Afraid of Anything” and “Mount Hum” are the finale of a brilliant climb. They summarize the full album through a post-rock build up to the chanted phrases of high impact. “I Can Be Afraid of Anything” revels in the phrase “I really did dig my own hole, but I’m climbing out,” with the entire band breaking into whimsical harmonies at the height of the song. “Mount Hum” does the same, but in the classic TWIABP style of layered lyrics. Much like the infamous “Getting Sodas” from “Whenever, If Ever,” “Mount Hum” finished off an impressive album with a message that remains even after the track ends:
“Come off and fall, so that I can pick you up. Our homes are not the kind of places you own. We were ghosts even then, errant sunlight on our skin. Sunlight, sunlight. And we drove out to the bluffs, raced each other through the dust. We’re all going to die.”
Each song on Harmlessness manages to carry some sort of weight, and it is impossible to list all of the reasons and meanings. Some important positive mentions are on “Mental Health” and “Rage Against the Dying of the Light,” where the lead singer chants “you are normal and healthy to forgive yourself” and “I am alive, I deserve to be.” Overall, the album exposes the dark points we all experience throughout our lifetimes with questions that we have all thought about at one point or another (like the emotional line “Whose side am I on?” from track four’s “The Word Lisa”). Despite the hardships we all have to pick ourselves up and keep moving until we reach a beautiful place.
Easily one of the best new albums to come from 2015, Harmlessness should be at the top of everyone’s “need to listen to” list.
Tracks to listen to: “January 10th, 2014,” “Rage Against the Dying of the Light,” “I Can Be Afraid of Anything,” “Mount Hum.”
The Front Bottoms: ‘Back on Top’
The third album release from indie punk band The Front Bottoms brings in new instruments to accompany the quirky and angsty goodness that is Brian Sella.
Back on Top brings a mature sound to a band that was made famous for being quirky. The album uses a different production and sound value, which can be seen in the clearness of each instrument and the synthesized twang placed on every lyric. Elements from the past two albums are still present in Back on Top such as the style of anecdotes as lyrics and if you listen closely, you can hear backup female vocals that were introduced on a few songs such as the self-titled album’s “Flashlight.” For dedicated fans, it’s little connections like that between albums that make listening to the discography more of story-telling experience. If the first two albums were sarcastic introductions to the hardships of being an adult, Back on Top is the perfect addition to a trilogy making light of all the crap we go through.
The album kicks off with “Motorcycle” and “Summer Shandy,” both lighthearted tunes that bump along without any snags. Although they’re catchy songs, nothing about them stood out too terribly much.
“Cough It Out” and “HELP,” tracks three and four off of the album, were released earlier as singles and already gained prominence through streaming services like Spotify and Youtube. The songs were originally met with criticism for such a different sound with the main complaint being that it was more electronic than the indie acoustic sound that made The Front Bottoms famous. The straight-forward confessional lyrics that made the band popular can still be found in places like when Sella repeats, “I am delusional with love,” or “I don’t know what I’m going to do about anything.”
“Laugh Till I Cry” shows off Sella’s impressive vocal range, putting lots of emphasis on his accent that set The Front Bottoms apart from others. The use of sound effects like a motorcycle when the lyrics scream “motorcycle” makes this track one of my favorites off of the album.
“Historic Cemetary” for someone that sings about “getting high” so much, Sella has openly admitted to not being a fan of smoking. The irony of that only adds to the humor found in dark places of the album. Sella touches on difficult topics, particularly on how to deal with emotional hardships through relationships, personal importance, and our place in the universe. This track brings in a singer other than Sella that spits dark spoken word about drug abuse over a bright and poppy synthesizer. Nothing could epitomize The Front Bottoms better than that.
“The Plan (Fuck Jobs)” is another personal favorite, because it starts off with a quieter acoustic guitar that lets Sella show off his lyrics and voice. Kicking off with personal faults like hypocrisy through lyrics like “when my mind is uncertain, my body decides,” “The Plan (Fuck Jobs)” accomplishes what the rest of the album is hinting at. It balances the Front Bottoms sound that everyone is used to with its new elements in a way that welcomes the listener to something new.
“Ginger” and “West Virginia” are more of those catchy filler album songs that give the listener something to jam with their friends on a road trip or something to blast at a party. “West Virginia” manages to show the goofy side of Sella that has been missing a little on this album. He even slips in “ride or die” to describe some friends in West Virginia, whom he also gives a personal shout out.
The ninth track, “2YL,” is another favorite. It’s a shout-out to the tingly feelings you get from romance with cute little stories that could rival the perfect dates we’ve dreamt about. A instrumental break with a large trumpet section is refreshing and a great addition to the lightness of this song after which Sella professes his affection, saying “I can be the rainbow in your sky” and his willingness to be there for someone else.
The hardest part of closing an album is picking the perfect track to finish the list. “Plastic Flowers” is a great end to a blossoming album. The highlight is the mid-song monologue that Sella speaks, encouraging everyone to chant along to the chorus of “I believe that someone’s got a plan for me even if I don’t know it yet.” “Plastic Flowers” tags a bigger sound with more background vocals, leading up to a the conclusion of their discography so far: even though things are hard now, it will work out in the end. Another added bonus is that if you’re listening to the album on repeat, the end of “Plastic Flowers” flows perfectly into the beginning of “Motorcycle,” bringing everything full circle for round two, three, and four.
Overall, Back on Top brings a new sound that evenly splits the album into songs that sound vaguely like “old Front Bottoms” and songs that scream “new Front Bottoms.” Characterized with chanted choruses and those certain lyrics that stay hooked in your mind long after the song is finished, Back on Top is a light-sounding but hard-hitting addition to the musical arsenal of The Front Bottoms.
Tracks to check out: “Cough It Out,” “2YL,” “Plastic Flowers,” “Laugh Till I Cry.”