Time - "This is Not an Exit" (ft. Jason Horodyski)

Exits. That's the concept of Denver's own Time's new video/track "This is Not an Exit." But it's more than exits. It's about escapism in all its forms: drugs, sex, war, suicide and anything else you can dream up as a way to avoid the real crux of an issue. It's a song about tragedy, and a video that ends with death too. The conversational style of the video, taking place first in a diner, and then in the final moments of the protagonist's life, drives the point home further. It's a hip-hop track about sitting with a buddy, considering the depths of fear and lack of purpose and lust and fame and sadness, and then seeing him slowly break down. Back up vocals by friend of the blog, Jason Horodyski, add yet more flavor, dressing the sometimes upbeat rhymes with a slow, Greek chorus style answer that seems to say, you'll never find a way out of these things. The tragedy of the song is that even with Horodyski's (he's from Maudlin Magpie, too) external advising, Time's character doesn't get it. He's too wrapped up in finding a way out to see that looking for one is the thing that's actually killing him. Check the track out below. "This is Not an Exit" is remarkable evidence that the Denver hip-hop scene is lush and lively. Dig.

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The Walking Dead - Nebraska & Triggerfinger

Well, signing out of my Gmail has fucked me again. I had written a decent post summing up these two episodes, and when I went post it, the auto-log-out meant that I lost it all. But! Take heart. The post probably wasn't any better than the contents of these two The Walking Dead episodes. Not entirely disappointing, but certainly not epic.

In "Nebraska" the highlight is a finely crafted scene in a bar, that starts with low-boiling weirdness in a conversation between Rick, Hershel, Glenn and some strangers, and ends in a shoot out. Lori gets in a car accident that's stupid. And Shane gets broodier and broodier while Dale spreads the word that Shane's a dangerous, probable dick. The few well planned, tense moments are too few though and most of the show continues down The Walking Dead's path of telling us whatever any character is thinking directly by having them cry out foolishly all the time. This includes Glenn's "I mean, it was Sophia" soliloquy. As if we really, as an audience ever attached to Sophia as more than a plot device, or another of the series' many contrivances.

"Triggerfinger" deals with the aftermath of the shoot out in the bar. Rick saves a guy because Rick needs to save guys, even if they're dicks. And Shane gets crazier. Lori's car accident turns out to mean nothing. Well... it gives Shane a reason to brood more, and be on the edge more, and declare his undying love more... which makes Lori ask Rick to shoot him. All in all, everyone else just philosophizes and talks about what's going on, how they met people, lost people, don't understand, want to understand, need to strike out on their own, hate Rick's decisions and other filler dialog.

So yeah. Nothing has really changed on AMC's tertiary flagship show. The effects remain solid, but all the action is used to create drama, instead of the other way around. I'm not saying that the zombies should approach and "pick" a fight, but when needless car accidents lead to needlessly easy zombie escapes just to lead to a post-attempted-rape confession of love, well, there's something wrong. If the writing can return to the amazing style demonstrated with the bar scene more frequently, The Walking Dead would be stronger. Instead, we learn another back story about people who used to do things for each other that the one who isn't in immediate danger remembers fondly. Death is everywhere, but they don't need to talk about it. Hell, maybe this show just needs an episode like "Hush" from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Anything to shut these characters up and get them to show us something tense and quiet.

More coming in two weeks. I'm gonna flip back to a two-ep per post style because the show just isn't giving me enough not to bitch about. Still, I enjoy it, so why'm I complainin'? (Southern-style.)
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Lovers Lane - Wally Clark of Gummy Soul

This is thinking man's doo wop hip-hop. While that excellent bit of words sinks in I'll let you ponder this. Wikipedia defines a 'Mary Sue' "as a fictional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as a wish-fulfilment fantasy for the author or reader. It is generally accepted as a character whose positive aspects overwhelm their other traits until they become one-dimensional." Mary Sue is the subject, via samples from films including Pleasantville, of the love stories within Wally Clark's thoughtful and thoroughly enjoyable Lovers Lane. See, as a doo wop hip-hop album, I still love the sound of that, it works heavily in contrasts. While the love of the doo wop era, the Leave It To Beaver landscape, was delicate and pure and hyper-romanticized, the love of this era, the era of hip-hop, is unabashedly sexual. What Clark does by mashing up doo wop tracks and film clips is highlight that difference, especially on tracks where he flies fearlessly into near-parody with the sexuality of the lyrics. But, Clark upholds the sweet side too, with a song like "Young Love" where the disappointment isn't about romance, but about life circumstance and addiction.

From start to finish Lovers Lane is a quality, deft and swift. The whole album is only 19 minutes, but while some albums would be disappointing at that short mark, this one is not. First, the replay-ability is high. The tracks here are so chill and cool that the album can act as background music, focused listening, or even babymaking music. Second, the execution here is tight. Clark is on theme. Clark is sampling intelligently. Clark is making keen observations about the contrast between idealized love, true love, real love, and sexuality. And in the midst of it all, the groove is smooth, funky and fucking great. Check out "Let's Go Steady," "Panty Dropper (Amerigo Rmx)" and "Young Love" for the highest highlights, but make sure you listen to the whole album from start to finish. There's a vibe here that is powerful and excellent. It feels like love in a lot of ways. And in a lot of ways it feels like even the darkest aspects of love are still idealized, especially as Mary Sue, Reese Witherspoon's alias in Pleasantville, begins corrupting the pure little American town. The important thing is that Wally Clark attends to the mash up in an intriguing, challenging, thoughtful and enjoyable way. Lovers Lane deserves some constant rotation. Dig in below. And peruse the rest of the Gummy Soul offerings here.
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Sharon Van Etten - Tramp

Ever since I saw Sharon Van Etten on the AV Club's AV Undercover performing the Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy," I've been enamored. Van Etten's slow, wistful, and sad, but charming delivery on that cover evoked full and pure passion, the kind that one can only recreate with experience in lost love and confusion. With Tramp, Van Etten assembles an album that reaches new heights in frankness, earnestness, and beauty. All these characteristics are most elemental on "Give Out" where Van Etten sings the lines: "You're the reason why I'll move to the city/ Or why I'll need to leave." It's a case of pure honesty, and a case where, as a listener, you have that "I should have thought of that!" moment. The peppier, but folksy "Serpents" discusses change, in people, and how we're never simply standing still. But, the delicate "Kevin's" is the album's deeply heartfelt love letter. It's a sultry piece of desire and heartbreak and loss of control. Tramp is infused with folk, country, and rock elements, but it lives and dies by Van Etten's memorable, iconic vocals. That, and those aforementioned high quality lyrics.

The album occasionally feels like a dream. As a testament to its layering and Van Etten's calm-aggression, on a song like "In Line" she gets Feist-y, well, and feisty too, but primarily, her poetic softness sounds strongly and not at all parroting like the solid tracks from The Reminder. There are experiments here, but most of them exist because of ambiance rather than strange instrumentation or complex arrangements. The slow-building, partially chorale, "All I Can" is just such an example. Van Etten smoothly transitions genre, from a whispering bit of church pastoral to a rumbling, tumbling slow-rock with subtle Beirut-esque horns. The beautifully harmonized "We Are Fine," seems almost to protest too much lyrically, as the male and female vocals refrain "I'm alright/ I'm alright" over and over. That's what we do sometimes, when it comes to love, when it comes to preservation. Because the power of words lies not only in our ability to utter them, but also in our ability to use them to convince ourselves, to advocate to our own subconscious. The highlight of the last half of the album is the run from "Magic Chords" to "I'm Wrong," and it all ends with elegant beauty in "Joke or a Lie," a song about becoming comfortable with having tried.

Listen to Tramp on Spotify here. You'll love it. Van Etten is excellent.
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Lana Del Rey - Born To Die

"Video Games" is still a very good. Nothing can, or will, tarnish that fact. Born To Die, Lana Del Rey's debut, isn't terrible. Hell, it's actually sort of enjoyable. The title track "Born To Die," if you ignore the hipster-death-punk video, is a good enough. Even the candy-coated, vocally confusing "Off To The Races" isn't all that bad. The problem with Lana Del Rey doesn't really lie in her music. If this album had come out blind, her reviews would have been far more favorable. The music is interesting, if sometimes dispassionate and bland, and the lyrics, though sometimes wanky, are good too. No, the problem here isn't with the music. The problem is with the internet. And Del Rey's use of it to gain stardom. See, had "Video Games," "Blue Jeans" and "Diet Mountain Dew" not blown up as they did last summer, this album wouldn't have drawn the bile and ire it is now. Del Rey is prey to the old problem. She has over-promised and under-delivered, instead of adhering to the axiom's opposite advice. That's not her fault entirely. It's the fault of the machine in place here online that turned her into a sensation, when really, a tempered opinion would have been more appropriate. It is, as many have pointed out, the online world did this to Black Kids, another band who was loved for an EP and hated for an LP.

Is Born To Die good? No. It's reasonably decent. On the backs of the tracks we know, Del Rey is enjoyable. And complaints about her inability to sing, or at least demonstrate some Adele-esque range, are foolish. She's not a good singer. That's not the point. She's an image. She's the broken, childish, oversexed, lost and confused image of a generation of women and girls whose sexualities and personalities have become interchangeable. Del Rey isn't a good example. She's the weak, man-needing character that decades of liberation have tried to dissuade. If she's a parody, hooray. But I don't think she is. Still, it's not about her voice. It's not about the music. Her failure, at this point, hinges entirely on the promise we perceived and the disappointment we feel from overly raised expectations. It's a problem as old as time. There's nothing about Del Rey that is less concocted than Britney Spears, Katy Perry, or Rhianna. She's formulaic. She's normal. She's just not as talented. And her team didn't do as good a job for her as those of the respective pop starlets I just listed. And that's okay. Born To Die isn't great. And if not for all the press, it wouldn't have had to be.

Sure, the lyrics are alternately profound and cheesy. Sure, Del Rey's voice populates many ranges but none particularly well. But, claims that the music is inherently forgettable are unfair. The first half of the album is actually pretty memorable and solid. It's the second half that's the problem. And that's because, boom, fame, followed by a frantic rush to compile enough songs to fill and LP. It's not a good excuse, but pop artists have been forced to throw albums together for generations. Look at Beatles For Sale, and the Rolling Stones' Black and Blue. Not everything is a hit. I'm not saying Del Rey is on par with the greats either, but the glasses through which she was viewed switched from rose-colored to shit-tinted in 15 minutes. And in all fairness, songs like "National Anthem" are hackneyed and slack. Del Rey isn't great. She's hit-or-miss. Listen to Born To Die on Spotify. It's free there. And it's worth the experience. At least once.
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Mikey Joseph O'Connor - The Love is Letting Go of Fear EP

Back again and on a prolific streak of songwriting, friend of the blog and It's A Thing! co-host Mikey Joseph O'Connor brings us a softer, gentler, happier, and even more honest set of song with The Love is Letting Go of Fear EP. What's different from The Day I Stopped All This? I mean, what could Mikey have possibly done to top the earnest, honest, tragic last love letter of last Autumn's EP? You probably think I'm building this up too much. You're probably right. At least in a sense. The answer to the question, the what's different question, is everything. On Love is Letting Go, O'Connor isn't merely working on letting go of fear, as the title might suggest. He's not even in the throws of a clear philosophical conundrum. See that wayside over there? Yeah, that one? Well, that's where all of Mikey's anger and frustration and disappointment seems to have fallen. The anguish inherent to The Day I Stopped All This is no more, and this new EP is very different kind of love letter.

This love letter is about amends, first. "Dear Aaron and Sarah... Sorry" is a brilliantly open-hearted, fully culpable and responsible song. It's a song that apologizes with its title, and clarifies that apology with its lyrics, its music and its frankness. It's a song about abuses. (And there's some continuing distinct Replacements vibe in there.) And having learned to transcend them. This is also a love letter about falling in love. "Earthquake Weather" is that song. O'Connor croons over a jaunty guitar, piano and bass composition about finding true love and remarking on the insignificant moments, the little ones, that become so huge when romance is attached. Love is restorative here. In a very prevent-the-city-from-shaking-apart way. Here's a video of it. LIVE!

Mikey Joseph O'Connor - Earthquake Weather from Mikey Joseph O'Connor on Vimeo.

It's a love letter crying, "It's us against the WORLD and all the evils therein." The darker "The Lions Den" is a song about breaking apart, but not because of the internal, human conflicts that come with love cast asunder by its parts. Instead, it's a song about an outside force, something bigger and darker and more indomitable, that seems ready to swallow both the song's protagonist and his subject of rescue. It's also one of the most brilliantly composed songs O'Connor has ever created. And it's a love letter about pure joy and thanks. "The One Good Thing" closes the set with an incredibly open and vulnerable character study. It opens with the stellar, inspiring lines, "My dreams go bad because I still can't trust myself/ And my dreams come back because of my mental health." It's a fucking incredible track too, with a solid piano riff, a ripping guitar solo, and a gorgeous refrain "You're given to me like a song that's on the radio."

In short, and in long, The Love is Letting Go of Fear EP is spectacular. Listen to it. You can check it out exclusively through Mikey's ReverbNation page.
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