I wrote a review on this band's first album, This Wreck is Goin' Down (1996) about a year ago. Blue Funnel World (1998) was the band's only other full length release. The release came out on Rhubarb Records, which was the band's founder, Greg Jacobs' own start-up record label in classic DIY fashion. The music again centers around Jacobs' vocals, guitar, and songwriting, but the writing is more diverse and the production is better than on the first album. I find more indie pop going on here, particularly in the album's best song "You Do Everything But Heal Me", even a label such as "shoegazing" wouldn't be far off the mark at times, but the acoustic guitar still makes its presence felt predominantly within the music. About half the album is instrumentals and I would say that in general the album's better songs reside in this half, but no exclusively. The general feeling tends to be up-beat although the lyrics run counter to this in general. The result is beautiful melancholy that benefits from the solid recording production.
Weeping in Fits and Starts - "You Do Everything But Heal Me"
My Bloody Valentine pops in my head as I listen to the reverbed and heavily distorted guitar running underneath the vocals on this song. Percussion is almost unchanged throughout the song and the guitar doesn't do too much, but when it does it is done well. The layered guitar that appears briefly around the 2:21 mark is a nice piece of production and a nice tweak to the song. The vocals feature male and female voices appearing together and perhaps the best vocals sung on the whole album. It's a very simple song with just a few added quirks, overall very well produced, and still emotionally evocative.
Weeping in Fits and Starts - "Rhedd"
Weeping in Fits and Starts - "Liliacs"
One of the many instrumentals on Blue Funnel World, "Rhedd" totals 3:25 in length and is heavily guitar driven with minor percussion in the background. The song builds up with added percussion and stronger guitar play until about the 2:14 mark when cymbals kick for a part and are carried off and into the next song, "Lilacs" a more somber keyboard (organ sounding to be exact) instrumental song.
After searching around online for a while, I could not find a copy available used or otherwise of Blue Funnel World, though I did find Weeping in Fits and Starts Facebook page that has some more information about a few shows they may be playing as a reformed group. Since the album is out of print, you can find and download the whole album freely available by clicking on this link: Weeping in Fits and Starts - Blue Funnel World.
0 comments:
Post a Comment