Ted Leo And The Pharmacists - "La Costa Brava" (mp3)
Having lived with Living With The Living for a while now, in that filthy advance leak downloader way that I rarely indulge in, I'm still feeling my way through it, figuring out where it fits in his discography, which will probably be somewhere in the middle. After all the talk of how it'd somehow be Chisel-esque, I'm not hearing that at all, which I'm glad for, because I don't really like Chisel at all (I'm not even sure what Ted could do to really recall that era, unless he suddenly became a much weaker, less confident singer than he's been the last few years). In a way, this is the record I expected him to make after Hearts Of Oak, stretching further out into each of his favorite musical avenues, celtic and reggae and hardcore, instead of going straight down the middle with a tight little power trio album like Shake The Sheets, which really really grew on me over time. I actually think he's shown some remarkable restraint over the last few years, to not go off adding more and more instruments and going off into endless Elvis Costello-type genre pastiches or try to create his own overblown Sandanista, which, in light of indulgent stuff like that "Tej Leo" record, seems entirely possible. By that standard, even the varied and slightly overlong Living pulls back a bit.
"Sons Of Cain" blew me away the first couple times I heard him play it on tour, but since Pitchfork posted the mp3 a while back, I think I've started to burn myself out on it, and the demos of "Army Bound" and "Some Beginner's Mind" that Ted posted on his site last year, already. "Sons Of Cain" is still probably the best song, but I'm starting to really dig into the less familiar ones, and it's the longer songs towards the end that are really killing me. Living With The Living might get hated on a little for not being as frontloaded as his records usually are (seriously, Tyranny and Sheets kinda blow their load in the first 5 songs). The big pretty ballad, "The Toro And The Toreador," is better than it has any right to be, and "La Costa Brava" has kind of just had me in a trance for the past few weeks, I'm not even totally sure what it is that I love about it. He better play it at the D.C. show in a couple weeks. I think I might even buy the album after all, mainly to check out that 5-song bonus EP that's supposed to come with it.
Having lived with Living With The Living for a while now, in that filthy advance leak downloader way that I rarely indulge in, I'm still feeling my way through it, figuring out where it fits in his discography, which will probably be somewhere in the middle. After all the talk of how it'd somehow be Chisel-esque, I'm not hearing that at all, which I'm glad for, because I don't really like Chisel at all (I'm not even sure what Ted could do to really recall that era, unless he suddenly became a much weaker, less confident singer than he's been the last few years). In a way, this is the record I expected him to make after Hearts Of Oak, stretching further out into each of his favorite musical avenues, celtic and reggae and hardcore, instead of going straight down the middle with a tight little power trio album like Shake The Sheets, which really really grew on me over time. I actually think he's shown some remarkable restraint over the last few years, to not go off adding more and more instruments and going off into endless Elvis Costello-type genre pastiches or try to create his own overblown Sandanista, which, in light of indulgent stuff like that "Tej Leo" record, seems entirely possible. By that standard, even the varied and slightly overlong Living pulls back a bit.
"Sons Of Cain" blew me away the first couple times I heard him play it on tour, but since Pitchfork posted the mp3 a while back, I think I've started to burn myself out on it, and the demos of "Army Bound" and "Some Beginner's Mind" that Ted posted on his site last year, already. "Sons Of Cain" is still probably the best song, but I'm starting to really dig into the less familiar ones, and it's the longer songs towards the end that are really killing me. Living With The Living might get hated on a little for not being as frontloaded as his records usually are (seriously, Tyranny and Sheets kinda blow their load in the first 5 songs). The big pretty ballad, "The Toro And The Toreador," is better than it has any right to be, and "La Costa Brava" has kind of just had me in a trance for the past few weeks, I'm not even totally sure what it is that I love about it. He better play it at the D.C. show in a couple weeks. I think I might even buy the album after all, mainly to check out that 5-song bonus EP that's supposed to come with it.
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on Thursday, March 08, 2007 at 11:58 PM.
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Mr. Emily : 1:39 PM