I was a high school freshman when the seventies dawned, and change was in the air. I'm not talking about sociopolitical upheaval here — I'm talking what really matters in our daily life — namely, rock and roll.
FM radio was just beginning to subvert the AM top forty format with a curious genre called "album rock." For the first time, we could sample "deep cuts" from hit albums with our own ears, rather than relying on reviews from Rolling Stone, Village Voice and Crawdaddy, before shelling out our hard-earned coke bottle money on the latest Monkees release. We were free at last.
Or so we thought.
Every revolution has its downside, and one of the repercussions of the FM revolution was that it gave credence to that most horrid of all mutants, art rock. In retrospect, we can lay the blame squarely on the scrawny shoulders of Pete Townshend and the Who's Tommy, the world's first (shudder) rock opera. And while Tommy was a noble experiment, it had the unintended effect of empowering every arthead in every college town in America (and Europe, I suppose) with the idea that Tolkien-inspired bad poetry and music theory classes could elevate their garage bands to art.
The sleepy little college town of Denton, Texas was at that time to fusion jazz what Austin would become to outlaw C&W. It was a well-deserved reputation-- North Texas State University's One O'Clock Lab Band even won a grammy for its jazz endeavors. The sad offshoot of that was that it also attracted every hippie who had ever strummed a guitar, blew a few notes into a recorder or read a few passages from Gravity's Rainbow. For a Texas hippie, Denton was Utopia.
Fast forward three some-odd decades later. North Texas State is now the University of North Texas, and Denton is still a college town forty miles north of Dallas, and still is a haven for collegiates who consider their every breath a whiff of "art." Occasionally, something relevant emerges from this self-absorbed community. Midlake's sophomore effort, The Trials of Van Occupanther, however, is not such an item.
Article comments
1 - Connie Phillips
This article has been placed at the Advance.net websites, a site affiliated with about 12 newspapers.
One such site is here.
2 - R. Beck
Oddly, the band never intended this album to be a concept album or tell a cogent story. They happen to have made one song about a guy named Van Occupanther and like the name so much they made it the album title.
The themes of isolation and simplification are quite in keeping with lyrics of the band's prior album. And as for being hippies and pacifists, this couldn't be more off point or inaccurate. Essentially, the band all voted for Bush - some more than twice (counting gubenatorial elections). Paul even has a license to carry a concealed handgun, and does. We're talking real Texans here.
It seems as though the author here was looking for something that was never intended and upset when he didn't find it. The "sophomore slump" problem usually plagues artists who are thrust into stardom and have to write a second album in a fraction of the time in which their first album had been conceived. Seeing as how this current album took well over a year of writing, recording and re-recording it cannot be seen as a "we've got to get something out there quick" endeavor.
Essentially, the band were looking to make songs that they thought were beautiful, music that they could sleep with themselves for putting out. If one finds himself not digging it, that's fine, but pretentiousness cannot be attributed to this group of hard-working southern gentlemen.
I suggest giving it another five listens and try just digging the songs. Some of them are quite infectious.
3 - Ray Ellis
R. Beck, From your comments, I'm forced to conclude you're very close to the band. And while I do admire loyalty, I fail to see how voting for Bush back when he was governor, or having a permit to carry a concealed weapon makes you a "real Texan." I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. I'm a native Texan, as was my father.
I'm also at a loss as to why the band being "southern gentlemen" has anything to do with the music on this album--it still sounds like what I said it sounds like.
I've already listened to it over fifteen times, so I see no reason why another five times is going to change my mind.
I wanted to like it--I really did. But it tried too hard to be a whole lot more than what it was. I wish them luck, but this album shows they have a way to go before they can be taken nearly as seriously as they want to be taken.
Ray Ellis
4 - Jon Edwards
Hmmmmm. Ray- talk about contrived??? This review falls commically short of orignal thought or sage commentary...rock n roll journalism cliche after cliche. However...it stuck out in my mind above the other reviews I read today before downlaoding this record online. Maybe that was your intent. But I must humbly disagree with you conclusion of this one. I found the album to be crisp as you likewise noted...but I've been through it several times now. And am utterly captivated by it's novelty and craft. I hate to say it...but I'm w/ Earl on this one.
5 - Michael
My thoughts - far and away better than previous works.
Needless to say, I disagree with some of the arguements given above.
This is a subtle “Rocker” with some “air” - and for some reason - studio mixed in a way that is heavy on the low end - suggest you roll the low ends off a bit.
Given: my suggestion, if downloading it..equalize some of the mixing…play with it, add some treble, easy on midranges, roll off 64 -125 hrtz range - to this ear…without that equalization you will not be able to appreciate the layering and chorusing of guitars and syth’s in the background given the beauty of the background open chording guitar work and harmony’s…there are levels of textual sounds here…play with it.
The Beauty of Composition
This band has many musical influences, a beautiful mix of harmony which on this song tends to utilize effective “in-tight” close voicing, 2nds and 3rds, and thrown in…the magical voicings remeniescent of Brian Wilson and David Crosby
Perhaps at first too short of an intro.. to rushed, but nice sythesized piano, with bass, drums, lead vocal and harmony (comparatively to what is to come)..
The first harmony backing the lead - I hear John Lennon “istic” pairing and enunciation with the lead vocal - Lennon/McCartney. Somewhat later after the initial chorus..the Beach Boy harmonics (it is under the ear but there) of Brain Wilson and that of David Crosby with Graham Nash. The primary lead vocal is suggestive of the clean and warbly characteristics of the high nasal range of Neil Young.
The bridges, unusual now as in nonexistent in current “bands” is here in this song..short but frequently extended, leading to additional layering of instrumentation without a key change just a slightly different expression of the theme. Overall I hear similarities in the bass line and peppy back beat symbal riding drum work of some pre-Revolver Beatle’s songs (think Ringo, swingin his head).
Adding to the “Neil Young” feel of this song, the guitarist relies on broadly open sparse, and heavy handed guitar chording, a crisp overdriven sound with little “grease” This guitarist also demonstrates behind the vocals, a sense of feel for the lyrical…once again demonstrating how this band has talent running all through this compostiion, being cerebral - yet fresh.
This is a clever song…ending in denser harmonies of both vocals and instrumentation benefiting from the textual layering of the “Wall of Sound” mixing style pioneered by Phil Spector..powerful and yet subtle in all its’ simple complexities..you have to listen for it.
This song evolves over its course, fusing and expressing a range of stylistic musings - the lyrics have the spectral conversational meanderings of early Joni Mitchell and syntheizer bridges like one finds with The Fix and Flock of Sea Gulls. Hauntingly, everything comes together deftly and in my mind…to a climax that leaves one asking, looking over the edge - “where was I just taken to.”
My thoughts - Maikaru
6 - Chris
Wrong, wrong, wrong. This is the best album of 2006 by FAR and you are severly mistaken if you feel that their first album, Bamnan and Slivercork, is even in the same realm as this one. I know, I know... I am usually totally of the "to each his or her own" mentality, but there is just no denying that this album is simply the best album I have heard in recent memory. I keep trying to make myself put other new albums in my playlist, yet I keep listening to this one over and over. And no, I do not listen to 70s folk at all. I am not even one to be able to draw that kind of reference easily. But, this music is flawlessly written and executed. Tell me one other current group who can even momentarily muster the kind of complex and creative harmonies written by the folks Midlake. There just doesn't exist today the kind of musicality that is prevalent throughout this disc. Sure, to some it may sound just too 70s-ish, but when you're this good at it, why turn it away? It's hard to make an album that harkens back to any period that doesn't sound kitschy... and here we have one that surpasses anything it is being compared to... So in my mind, this one will go down as one of the greats in my lifetime. Neutral Milk Hotel, Arcade Fire, Midlake. There, I said it.
7 - R. Beck
My "real Texans" comment was meant merely to eschew the idea that they qualify as the Dentonion pacifists and hipsters to which the review alludes, in somewhat of a comic manner. I did not mean to negate anyone's Texan-ness just because he doesn't tote a gun or vote for Bush. My apologies if that's how it was construed.
8 - Greg Formager
Who cares. Listen to it if you like it. Don't if you don't.