James: The Night Before/The Morning After

There's beauty in this set, but not a pretty, precious beauty. A heavy, at times difficult-to-stand type of beauty. Sonically, it has a lot in common with Coldplay, and should theoretically appeal to the same audience, but somehow I can see them being turned off by how much more "real" this band is. They pitch their music on the same grandiose level, but back it up with thrilling, satisfying substance that makes for a compelling set that gets better with each listen as it absorbs you and gradually reveals itself. James' singer, Tim Booth, sings with conviction, maybe even romanticism tempered by realism. Like a grounded, worn out Bono.

The Night Before & The Morning After are a set of complimentary mini-albums. They're consistent enough that they can easily be heard together, but distinct enough that you can see why they are kept separate. The former is fittingly mysterious: a tease, grandiose and confident, shielded by the night. The latter is more subtle, detail-oriented. There's one song on it, "Kaleidoscope," which seems to be about one thing, then reveals its true nature and hits you right in the gut. Morning After ends with a lonely, quiet track called "Fear," which lingers a whole on its way out the door. If you opt to listen to The Morning After second, you will be left a-quiver. But it might be even too jarring to go from that to The Night Before's opening number.

The Night Before begins with a charging, rousing number called "It's Hot," creating a lyrical ballet out of cellular division. Like a lot of songs on Night Before, it goes for the high and fast. Of the two, it's easily the more crowd-pleasing. None of the 15 tracks are bad, but the ones you'll find yourself humming along to are all on Night Before: "Crazy," "Ten Below" and "Shine" all have distinctly catchy qualities, yet don't lack for musical sophistication. "Hero" could be in commercials for medical dramas based on its hook, but still has a lot more to recommend it. And the fact that "Porcupine" sounds like a potential hit to me probably explains why I am not actually working in the music industry.

Then there's the most positively addicting song on the whole experiment, "Dr. Hellier." I don't necessarily mean it's the best, only that those "Ahn-an-ahn-ah-na-na-na" chants get under your skin in that way that happens when a song just fucking grabs you. It's delivered with life, exuberance, and yet also desperation and despair. I've always been a big fan of what's called "non-lexical" lyrics, those nonsense words that imply more than actual words could say, or leave the mood open to interpretation. Lyrically, it's pretty fascinating too, using the Fantastic Voyage (the classic sci-fi about shrinking down into someone's body - like that Magic School Bus episode) to tie into other themes explored on the album, particularly in its second half, where a track like "Dr. Hellier" would disrupt the sombre mood.

The other half begins with the staggering stomp of "Got The Shakes." Built on an ominous slide guitar, and Booth's pleading voice, it makes a good transition between the sounds of the two halves. It's not as huge as the other half, not as dreary as the rest of this one. And I mean dreary in the best way. The piano-based "Dust Motes" is one of my favourite of the 15 songs, and it contains lyrics like "There's a vulture at the end of my bed / It's 5 AM, it thinks I'm dead." Then there's "Tell Her I Said So," which is one of the most distressing songs on here, despite its choral chant of "Here's to a long life," because the "her" in question is death, and we have the still relatively young men of James contemplating euthanasia with off-putting vigor.

It's all a very somber affair, laid out with delicate style, and as I said earlier, beauty. The music is an engaging listen, and if it doesn't exactly tell a story then it's certainly got a through-line you can hold on to while the tunes all swirl around you. It just skirts the line of sentimentality and melodrama without ever getting sucked down into it, keeping a distance from its subject matter while still keeping all the details in crystal clarity. And the music is damn well-done.

I'm still not entirely certain how these two halves are meant to go together. If you buy only one you're getting only half an experience, but to listen to it all at once is almost too much to handle. For what it's worth, it's being sold on iTunes as a single package with the tracks interlaced in a way that will give you a different reading of the album than I'm providing. I, however, like the division. I like the idea that even if there's no prescribed way to listen to these pieces of music, it comes in two big chunks that somehow complement each other, fleshing out feelings and sounds conspicuously absent from the other.

The Night Before and The Morning After comprise a great project of music. They take on that huge Colplay-U2-Fray sound and dig into what's supposed to be beneath the commercial sheen, holding out its guts and bones and confronting you rather than comforting you. This is exactly the kind of project I figured this site was designed for.

Buy The Night Before: iTunes Canada // Amazon.ca


Buy The Morning After: iTunes Canada // Amazon.ca

Buy The Morning After The Night Before: iTunes Canada // iTunes USA // Amazon.ca // Amazon.com

Arctic Monkeys/Strokes: Favourite Worst Nightmare/Room on Fire (Two-For-One)

The key to this blog is that it's not music journalism. I'm not out there to provide commentary on all the latest music and keep up on the scene. This is really a personal blog, documenting my ongoing project to discover and rediscover great music. And given I spent a lot of the 2000s not paying enough attention to current music, that leaves a healthy gap to fill in, since, on my first pass, I largely missed out these bands. I knew of them, but didn't pay any attention. And now I'm here, learning how to talk about them.

In the case of both of these bands, I came around to them specifically for material for this blog. The Arctic Monkeys' debut, Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not, was one of my favourite albums I listened to in the first half of the year. I got around to the Strokes' first album in the fall, but didn't review it because I felt like my comments would be limited to "This is excellent." (Okay, I probably could have done better, but I was more interested in talking about their latest album, Angles.) These two bands are often linked in my mind because they both delivered massive debut albums with a ton of hype, then provided a series of follow-ups with diminishing sales and praise.

Having to write a second album is the worst prospect in rock music, especially if your first one is a smash. There's the possibility you used up all your good stuff on the first go, the insurmountable fan expectations for "the same but more," and the paradoxical concern you'll just end up copying yourself. I think a lot of fans, in the back of their minds, root for the follow-ups to fail, to maintain the purity of the first album. Both of these offerings navigated these pressures simply by being awesome.

The first few tracks of Favourite Worst Nightmare by the Arctic Monkeys are a bit like a hangover from Whatever People Say I Am: Wordy, observational, power-funk, bratty rock. There's the feeling, though, that as good as they are, they don't quite measure up to "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor," "The View From The Afternoon" or "From The Ritz to the Rubble." But they do have some points in their favour: Their sound is thicker and more powerful, indicating that the band has leveled up some. "Brianstorm" is a whirlwind, "D is for Dangerous" is an explosion and "Balaclava" edges the album toward its greatness with its nimble basswork. The lyrics haven't suffered none either, especially on the latter.

"Fluorescent Adolescent" is where the album really hits its stride, bringing in any easy-riffing shuffle that culminates in a circular, overlapping lyric that marries form and function (tastes great, less fat!) It and even moreso "Only Ones Who Know" provide evidence that the band has a heart on this album. While "Fluorescent" was sort of a new prospect for the group, "Only Ones Who Know" has a shimmering beauty and earnest vocal that was not hinted at on the earlier record. But enough about how this one compares. It takes on a spirit of its own from here on out. The watchword for critics is "maturity," and that's true, it does feel like the songwriting has broadened its eye without quite changing the topic (the dark underside of a good time.) "Do Me A Favour," "This House is a Circus" and "If You Were There, Beware" propel themselves on a basic urgency that never makes the band seem too carefree or lightweight. Things in these songs, all through this album, are not simple. The way the dizzying "Circus" transitions into the ominous "Beware" is a thing of beauty.

"The Bad Thing" is the next great track on the album: it's not that it distinguishes itself from the rest of the songs as much as I feel it is one of the best examples of what Alex Turner & Co do, setting a rhythm-n-shakedown up with a lyric about how taking off one's wedding ring to cheat "Won't make it / That much easier / It might make it worse." Its abrupt end takes you to the mesmerizing funk of "Old Yellow Bricks," with its lyrics suspicious of nostalgia. The closing number, "505," is one of the most outstanding songs on either album, beginning as it does with that whimpering, lonely vocal (reminiscent of "Only Ones Who Know" or the earlier "Riot Van,") but exploding into a driving classic rock number, at last unwinding into an uncoiled bass riff that leaves you hanging just that little bit.

Like Favourite Worst Nightmare, Room On Fire has a number of pleasures of its own. The album doesn't foresake the bleary-eyed Sunday morning hangover sound of its predecessor, but it does pump it up to almost cartoonish proportions, wonderfully, right from the start on "What Ever Happened," with its pulsating guitars and that razor-rasp vocal from Julian Casablancas. Julian has two modes: uninterested mutter and freaked-out howl, and he alternates between them perfectly: some songs are all one or the other, and the ones that are both are perfect. Take "Reptilia," the best cut on the album, with its jigsaw riffs that snap together perfectly and that urgent chorus, set against a rock-solid rhythm of bass and drum. Those first two tracks both provide a listening experience different from that found on the previous album. "You Talk Way Too Much," "Meet Me In The Bathroom," "The Way It Is" and "I Can't Win" bring the straightforward, strummy, glossy garage punk you want from these guys. I'm particularly interested in the way the vocals are mixed, fuzzy and distant, almost desperate not to be heard. On a few key tracks, they monkey around with genres, with ska-like cuts (as Is This It also had) and the nearly doo-wop "Under Control."

Meanwhile, "12:51" features some of the best guitar sound, with its sparkling pedal effect, and the next-to-last track "The End Has No End" combines every element I like about the band into one, serving as an awesome climax for the record ("I Can't Win" is the abrupt aftermath.) It's a really exciting listen, and the band really does benefit from the upsizing of their sound.

I may be the only one who cares or thinks about this sort of thing, years later. But as I've mentioned before, an album does not cease to exist because its timeperiod of release as passed on. Both these bands' discographies are still widely available and perfectly enjoyable. The reason I don't give star ratings, of course, is so I don't have to concede "Well, it's not the first album, so I knocked off half a point." I mean, what is that? Why would "different" mean "worse?" Or for that matter, why would "too similar" also mean "worse?" Both albums to some degree are similar to the previous, and to some degree different, and both provide incredibly enjoyable listening experiences.

Buy Favourite Worst Nightmare Now: iTunes Canada // iTunes USA // Amazon.ca // Amazon.com



Buy Room On Fire now: iTunes Canada // iTunes USA // Amazon.ca // Amazon.com