More Album Reviews

As promised a little while ago.  However, I'm not going to do Calling Zero yet, because I've only listened to it once through, and want to be sure I get a solid perspective of it.  Also, I should be getting copies of JJ72 (by the band of the same name) and Teenage Fanclub's debut, A Catholic Education, so I can do three at a time.  Also, because for some reason I like doing 3 at a time, I'll do the new Rod Jones album, technically by The Birthday Suit, called The Eleventh Hour, which doesn't really have very many reviews, so maybe my amateur effort will have some meaning to it?  Anyway, I guess I'll start with it, since I've had it longest:

THE ELEVENTH HOUR - THE BIRTHDAY SUIT - 7/10
So yeah, a pretty solid album.  Let me give you some disclaimers first: I have not heard Rod's folkier solo debut, so I went into this with only Idlewild as my comparison, and I think I've read things that say it goes for a rock sound more similar to Idlewild's catalogue than, say Roddy's solo work (non Idlewild fans may be extremely confused by my having just said this.  Rod and Roddy are different people for future reference).  I don't think it's really fair to make 100 Broken Windows the measuring stick here, since that album is my all-time favorite and it got me through freshman year, but whatevs.  It is what it is, and Eleventh Hour isn't 100 Broken Windows, largely because Rod now is different from Rod then, and he's also not Roddy.  For instance, in "Sell it All" I was somewhat taken aback by the grammatical incorrectness in the lines "I don't care if you don't care for me no more", since Roddy (who I assume, based on every interview I've read, wrote basically all the lyrics for Idlewild) is so good at that stuff, but Rod is still, at times, just as clever.  That line, amusingly enough, sort of echoes that propensity for intraline repetition that started to make itself more conspicuous in The Remote Part in lines like "I always happens, it sometimes happens to me.  Except always isn't a word I use. Always isn't a word I choose".  I really do think Rod is very clever at times also, in "Sell it All", especially, and the instrumentals, of course his specialty seeing as he was guitarist for Idlewild, are all great, especially the transition from "Do You Ever" to "Hope Me Home".  "Are You Okay" is also pretty different.  Rod's voice is also, dare I say, high and nasally in the same sense that Roddy's was on Captain and Hope is Important but, as I've heard it described, "cuter", which I think is apt.  He's earnest where nasal Roddy was angsty, which pretty much describes how The Birthday Suit diverges from early Idlewild stuff whose sound it tries to approximate.  "Do You Ever", "Hope Me Home", and "A Nation" are highlights.

ICKY METTLE - ARCHERS OF LOAF - 8/10
As a Superchunk fan, first and foremost, I saw these guys as Chapel Hill runners-up for a long time, although that guy on Pitchfork says he thinks they're better than Pavement.  After listening to Icky Mettle, it's obvious that Superchunk and Archers of Loaf are too different to be compared. How so? AoL is a million times more hardcore.  So yeah, I will say that Superchunk and Archers of Loaf are both clever and wry as hell, but Mac McCaughan doesn't rub it in your face like Eric Bachmann does.  He tempts us with "Web in Front" as though he'll try to be honest and sensitive with us, saying "All I ever wanted was to be your spine", presumably with puppy-dog eyes, and then starts out "Last Word" just as meekly before giving us a middle finger that lasts for the rest of the album, and continues into "Audiowhore" if you got the version with bonus tracks (speaking of which, I need to know which Leafs player is on the cover of "Archers of Loaf vs. the Greatest of All Time".  Like it's a physical need as a Leafs fan).  Generally, it alternates between "sensitive" song, song you'd be embarassed to have your mom see you listen to, over and over again.  You'll be like this: "Oh, 'You and Me' is over, now I can feel less badass for a bit with 'Might'", and then "Hate Paste" will come on and the pattern will start all over again.  But yeah, this is a fun album.  Most fun album? Off the top of my head I put Ned's Atomic Dustbin's and Eric's Trip's first albums ahead (Later edit: Is This It is the most fun album of all time; something which I had forgotten), but when you're being compared favorably with Superchunk on the fun-o-meter, you're in good company.  Highlights are "Wrong", "Plumb Line", and the fantastic "Slow Worm".

DIARY - SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE - 9/10
Dear God.  From now on I'll see the Foo Fighters not as the drummer from Nirvana's awesome band, but the disappointing SDRE spinoff without Jeremy Enigk, who is a revelation.  Sorry my many Foo Fighter fan friends, but as awesome as "Everlong" is, 2/3 of Diary is on a completely different level.  It's really unfair, considering Enigk is the one guy on Earth who can seriously make a concept album (I guess) called Return of the Frog Queen and have it be awesome.  Getting the rerelease edition with the lyrics packet thingy and random little kids' toy art  (if the original didn't have it, which would be a tragedy, it augments the already cathartic Diary experience that much) really shows the brilliant songwriting that went into this album, and even before I knew what the words to "Seven" were I though it was awesome.  Knowing what Enigk, maybe the most emotionally powerful American singer ever (because I'm going to extremes here), is actually saying (interesting note - he puts a 'W' before every word that starts with a vowel) is really just the cherry on top, though.  Listening to "Seven" is like being born again (Jeremy Enigk can't worship himself, I guess, so he was born again to worship God.  Ironic really), "Song About an Angel" is an equally jolting and incredible experience.  Also "In Circles", "Shadows" and "47" are there for you if you can't stand the heat, or don't want it for a moment; but with music this potent, why not just take it all? I'll bury my hatchet with Emo.  No reason not to, and I know it's not the same now as it was then, but whatever.  I have no more qualms after this and Jawbreaker.  I do agree with people who say that this is top heavy: "Grendel" and "Sometimes" don't quite live up to the colossal standards of the first nine songs, but they're still decent.  Highlights are "Seven", "Song About an Angel", and "48".