Music Review: Backyard Tire Fire - The Places We Lived - Page 2

Instead of sticking to the mid-range, where most vocalists tend to perch safely, Ed Anderson pushes his voice an octave higher. The whole song was then pitched to suit the vocals, with the result being a piece of music that has a tinge of soul to it, as the music sways underneath it instead of pulsing like a rock song normally would. While there was a slightly disconcerting resemblance to some of the sappier white soul of the seventies, it was saved from that because of the slightly harsher underpinnings they allowed to happen musically. The contrast between the rock attitude and the soulful voice went a long way towards making this a genuinely alternative offering.

In contrast to this was the very next offering on the disc "Everybody's Down", a nice, solid blues based rock song reminiscent of late '60s early '70s Rolling Stones, which is a harder sound to create than people think. It's easy to do boring blues-based rock, but it's difficult to write a song in that mode and make it interesting. While both those songs were interesting it's the fourth song on the disc where their originality really comes through.

On "Time With You" they take the very big risk of deliberately creating discordance between the keyboards and guitar. My ear isn't good enough to tell exactly what they were doing, juggling pitch or playing in different keys, but there was something wonderfully jarring about the song that made you pay more attention to it than you would have otherwise. I think what I especially like about it was the fact it was interesting to listen to, without sounding like they set out to make it "interesting." There was nothing about there music anywhere that indicated pretence or artifice, instead they were obviously looking for ways to make their music more expressive and willing to take chances to do so.

In my mind that's what an alternative band should do; take chances and be willing to make mistakes. Not that these guys seem to make many mistakes. Each time I listened to the disc it kept getting better. Most of the time you listen to a disc a couple of times and there's nothing new left to discover. Backyard Tire Fire's The Places We Lived on the other hand keeps offering up little gems of adventure with each new listen. The mix of strings and keyboard on "Rainy Day Don't Go Away," juxtaposed with the seemingly straight ahead rocker of the previous cut, "How The Hell Did We Get Back Here," is just one example of their willingness to experiment with styles of music. Instead of worrying about what they are "supposed" to be playing, they seem more concerned with figuring out what's appropriate to the nature of the song they have written.

Article Author: Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of the recently published What Will Happen In Eragon IV? and has had his work published in print and on line all over the world. The not so long-haired Canadian iconoclast writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees …

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