Dec. 29, 2010 at 4:20pm with 1 note
Albums 2010MenomenaTed Leo And The Pharmacists
ALBUMS 2010: #3/#4

Menomena - Mines
3. Menomena - Mines - Barsuk

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - The Brutalist Bricks
4. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - The Brutalist Bricks - Matador

One of my favorite things any band can do on an album is start things off slow and peaceful.  Menomena do that with “Queen Black Acid”, one of my many favorites of theirs that I’ve been living with since Pitchfork posted footage of them performing it a year ago.  It’s tranquil, it’s so soothing, the bass line prickling up against the delicate guitar playing.  That can’t be said for the grandiose squall of “TAOS”, the song that follows it.  Saxaphone everywhere, fuzzy bass lines fuming with the chaos of drums collapsing left and right.  “Killemall” is this bouncy piano-ladened number that is destined to be a big hit sooner or later.  “Dirty Cartoons” might be in the same boat with it’s simple acoustic intro and immediate vocals from Danny Seim.  And this is only the first four songs.  The other seven also chronicle love and other relationships that have failed and flailed.  They also teeter on paranoid moments, shaky musical scales, and a cold hard truth at the very end: these boys have made their best album yet.

Ted Leo hit his stride with Hearts Of Oak; his last album, Living With The Living was this way-too-long album that went on, well, forever.  I mean, really, 14 songs with a 60+ minute running time a bonus EP that has one of your best songs, ever, and you relegate it to a bonus EP?!? That’s not the case here, as The Brutalist Bricks are even better songs.  Brick by brick we find Ted in his most direct storytelling ways ever, from the visiting of a nephew to realize feelings in “Bottled In Cork”, to the hardcore guitar thrashings of yesteryear throughout, to the piano booming in “Woke Up Near Chelsea” to the reggae meanderings of “One Polaroid A Day”.  Oh, and the fun title “Bartolomeo And The Buzzing of Bees” and it’s infinite catchiness.  In that song, Ted claims he feels a change coming along, but as long as he stays the course he’ll keep writing his best songs in the next few years.

  1. rustygota posted this