Clutch: 50,000 Unstoppable Watts

So, the new Clutch album, Strange Cousins From The West, comes out today. I'm excited. I'll pick it up at lunch. Here's the video for the song 50,000 Unstoppable Watts. Enjoy.

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Bruce...Cleanup On Aisle Two

I picked up Bruce Springsteen’s new album, Working on a Dream, the other day. I imported it into iTunes and have tried getting through it a few times on my iPod...to no avail. I can’t get past the over-the-top cheesiness of the thing. To start, the album art is atrocious. Really, really terrible. Who okayed it? Then there’s Bruce’s dick broom. Shave that shit…who do you think you are, Phil Jackson? Nothing screams "I’m getting old and not enjoying it" more than a dirty dick duster. Then there’s the Wal-Mart exclusive Greatest Hits CD and the upcoming Super Bowl Halftime show. Good lord. I used to love this guy. One of the first cassettes I ever owned was Born in the USA. I still go back to that album; it’s genius. Some of his recent stuff is pretty good too. Check out Reno on Devils and Dust. That’s good writing. The thing that really depresses me about Working on a Dream is the quality (or lack thereof) of the songs. It seems as if Mr. Springsteen has lost or turned off is lyric quality control filter. His discernment is shot to hell. He needs to get some outside input and he needs to listen to that input. There is no way that a song like Queen of the Supermarket should be on a Bruce Springsteen album. It shouldn’t even qualify as a b-side. It’s absolutely terrible. Don’t believe me? Here are the lyrics (I’ve bolded the funniest parts):

There's a wonderful world where all you desire
And everything you've longed for is at your fingertips
Where the bittersweet taste of life is at your lips
Where aisles and aisles of dreams await you
And the cool promise of ecstasy fills the air
At the end of each working day she's waiting there

I'm in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
As the evening sky turns blue
A dream awaits in aisle number two

With my shopping cart I move through the heart
Of a sea of fools so blissfully unaware
That they're in the presence of something wonderful and rare
The way she moves behind the counter
Beneath her white apron her secret remains hers
As she bags the groceries her eyes so bored
And sure she's unobserved

I'm in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
There's nothing I can say
Each night I take my groceries and I drift away
And I drift away

Guidance from the gods above
At night I pray for the strength to tell her
When I love I love I love I love her so
Take my place in the check-out line
For one moment her eyes meet mine
I'm lifted up, lifted up, lifted up, lifted up

I'm in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
Though her company cap covers her hair
Nothing can hide the beauty waiting there
The beauty waiting there

I'm in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
I'm in love with the Queen of the Supermarket

As I lift my groceries in to my car
I turn back for a moment and catch a smile
That blows this whole fucking place apart

I'm in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
I'm in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
I'm in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
I'm in love with the Queen of the Supermarket

Man, that is some trash there. I should've just bolded the whole thing. C’mon Bruce…you’re better than this. Or are you? Maybe it’s my lyric quality control filter that needs changing. Fuck. I guess I'll have to listen to Neon Bible and Sam's Town to get my fix.

The Walkmen: You & Me

When I hijacked the indie credibility train to New York Town, I made sure to tighten my jeans and shrink my t-shirts. My skinny fucking arms and my patchy beard. After all, I was listening to Camper Van Morrison long before you bought your first DeCrotchKa cassette. Back then, there was this little band called The Walkmen, releasing album after album of pure sonic sustenance, Hawaiian reverb-soaked wedding ballad guitar vibrations and tinkering toy piano tones as fleeting as a cantankerous seaman’s cancerous semen-scented Hollywood afterthought. These Walkmen are all about the middle. Sure, highs and lows exist in their sonicsphere, but their albums revel in midrangey guitars and Leonard Cohen Brothers vocals that penetrate tympanic membranes and send synaptic signals bouncing around your bulbous brain until you want to bash it, ba shit against a wall, bleeding into your bro’s brew, bro-ham. It’s Dillonesque and I’m feeling a bit Gassian. Hamilton and company’s latest excursion into your hollow, opiate-caked heart is called You & Me, an apt title in a year when we have Hymn and Her and She & Him. Mysterious pronouns catch me off guard, like a contortionist with post-infectious IBS or a dangling disciple. But it’s the songs, man, the songs that matter. They meld together like a delicious swampy porridge in a crusty wooden bowl. It’s the subtleties that impress—the natural clicks of the keys and the scrapes of the strings, the nuance underlying an obscene October memory. Did you know that these former Jonathon Fire*Eaters and Recoys rockers received the inspiration for the chorus of their hit track “In the New Year” from Ridley Scott’s 2006 film A Good Year which stars Russell Crowe as a scrotum flicking neo-romantic? Break out your small sweaters boys ‘cause Autumn is upon us.

Editors Note: All misspellings, poor grammar, shoddy references, and unverifiable assertions are intentional. May Jesus bless this mess.

Spiritualized: Songs in A&E

Let’s do some music reviews. Not really reviews, per se, but me telling you what albums you should buy and the reasons you should buy them. I guess that’s a review, but you won’t read any negative music reviews from me because I won’t take the time to write them. All my music reviews will be recommendations. Let’s call them music recommendations for simplicity’s sake.

My friend Chad told me about an album I should listen to. It’s the new CD by Spiritualized, entitled Songs in A&E. He said I’d appreciate the lyrics and the spacey textures, especially considering my on-going medical condition and reliance on pain meds. He was right (he usually is). I love this album. I’ve never listened to Spiritualized before, so you true-blue Spiritualized fans can mock me now. The album artwork is simple and effective: green ink on a white background. I’m glad that they list the song titles on the back cover. A lot of hip “indie” bands are getting away from that for some reason (i.e. Bright Eyes) or they print the titles really small near the spine (i.e. the new Wolf Parade) so I can’t read them. I like to see how many tracks are on an album and I like to be able to refer to the album cover to see the name of the song as I’m listening to the CD so I don’t have to call the song Track 3 or Track 7 or whatever.

The songs on A&E range from sparse, nearly acoustic numbers like Death Take Your Fiddle (with an eerie breathing track) to grandiose, orchestral pieces like Borrowed Your Gun. Death Take Your Fiddle sounds surprisingly similar to Townes Van Zandt's Waiting Around to Die. There are some great intermittent instrumental pieces that tie things together nicely. The album has an overall cohesive feel; it’s a concept album in an era of singles. My friend told me that the lead singer/songwriter went through a period where he lived in the hospital on the brink of death for a while. Most of the songs on the album reflect that theme—a closeness to death, overmedication, hallucination, etc. Some of the lyrics are incredible. Here are a few examples:

I think I’ll drink myself into a coma
And I’ll take any pill that I can find
But morphine, codeine, whisky they won’t alter
The way I feel now death is not around

And

I got a hurricane inside my veins
And I want to stay forever

And

Daddy I’m sorry
I borrowed your gun again
Shot up my mother
My beautiful mother

This album is dark but it’s amazing. If you haven’t listened to Spiritualized before, take a chance on it. If you have, you already know how good it can be.