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Rating: And I think I know what the bitter dismay
of a lover who brings them
fresh bouquets every day
only to be rejected for a memory of Her
of some scoundrel
who one day, years ago,
gave her a single rose..."
(from "A Stone")
Is there anything purer than a triumphant defeat, a noble surrender?
That feeling that is satisfaction and longing, a yearning for a light that dims with every step taken towards Her?
From Austin, Texas, Will Sheff and his crew cloak lost loves in the passage of time, everyday stories, and inevitable self-examinations with disenchantment and yes, a pinch of disappointment.
Like a black viscose scarf thrown over an oil lamp.
The intro, which is also the title track and a cover of Tim Hardin, serves effectively as a "legend" or guiding thread of an album that finds in the declamatory unrest of "For Real" an excellent path to its presentation. Electric shocks over a dazzling yet drowsy base offer us a distorted and partial view of the real characteristics of "Black Sheep Boy."
"Show me that you really tried.
And I don't want to hear:
"It shouldn't be this way,"
because for me, THIS way, it's just fine..."
Indeed, it is trapped somewhere between the Nick Drake of Pink Moon and the creaks of Sparklehorse, the fragile, needy, and suspended "In a Radio Song," and you almost fear the crystal it's made of might shatter into a thousand pieces due to the bass line and the calls for rough justice from a "Black" that captivates you at first listen.
The defiant and regret-laden folk of "Get Big" is a prelude to the assimilation of 9 minutes for which simple and ephemeral words seem almost offensive.
A delightful modern fairy tale, punctuated by trumpets, marimba, and delay arpeggios, "A King and a Queen" literally pairs with a "A Stone" in which it sounds like listening to The Black Heart Procession forcefully attached to a drip of antidepressants until a bitter and "losing" epilogue sets things back in place.
The enjoyable and nervous Indie-Rock of "The Latest Thoughts" brings us back to reality, while the borderland Stomp-Country of "Song of our So-Called Friend" reminds us how heartbreaking the impossibility of being loved is when you want nothing else.
Granular, hazy, amidst counterpoints of piano and brass that console vocal cords broken by recent crying and a touch too much scotch, "So Come Back, I am Waiting" precedes the desperate final ballad "A Glow," hallucinated and heart-wrenching just enough to extract a tear, a sigh, and a multitude of discordant thoughts.
Can one, in all honesty, ask for more from a simple record???
"You emit a glow.
Climb into my arms
with your blood-stained clothes.
Enter the den...emit a glow."
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 For Real (04:42)
Some nights I thirst for real blood,
for real knives, for real cries.
And then the flash of steel from real guns
in real life really fills my mind.
I really miss what really did exist
when I held your throat so tight.
And I miss the bus as it swerved from us
and came crashing to its side.
Some nights the blood from real cuts
feels real nice when it's really mine.
And if you want it to be real,
come over for a night,
and we can really, really climb.
Cuz blue bridge lights
might really burn most bright
while we watch that dark lake rise.
And if you really want to see
what really matters most to me,
just take a real short drive.
its just a drive into the dark stretch,
long stretch of night,
really stretch this shaking mind.
And this room, unlit, unheated,
and the ceiling striped,
and the dark black blinds....
I want to know this time
If you're really finally mine
I need to know that you're not lying,
and so I want to see you tried.
And I don't want to hear you say
it shouldn't really be this way,
because I like this way just fine.
Cuz there's nothing quite like
the blinding light
that curtain's cast aside,
and no attempt is made to explain away
things that really, really, really really really are behind.
You can't hide.
You can't hide.
You can't hide.
You can't hide...
08 The Latest Toughs (03:11)
All the latest toughs,
you’ve got to shrug them off or shut them off.
With ten-thousand-time-told truths,
you’ve still got to ask for proof. Ask for proof, because if you’re dying to be led
they’ll lead you up the hill in chains
to their popular refrains
and then your slaughter’s been arranged, my little lamb, and it’s much too late to talk the knife out of their hands.
Well, I woke up on a foggy morning.
Hiding from the sun, he was hiding from the sun.
But it came out and it shot its rays down.
Burning everyone, it was burning everyone.
But they were dying, anyway, to turn to ash, to feel their feelings flash and finally fade away,
in a fabulous and fiery display.
And I don't know what notes you want to hear played,
can't think what lines you'd like me to sing or say,
Not sure what subjects you want mentioned.
So just pause and add your own intentions.
All the latest toughs, well, we have seen that stuff,
and we have seen enough blood in dying coughs,
which means that we have lost. We have lost,
but if you’re crying to be tossed
they’ll toss you down the oubliette
with all the old things that you let yourself forget
because you’d like to love a star
who’d throw you down below the ground he thinks you are.
11 A Glow (03:43)
Come into the den, come into the den
You've got a glow
Climb into my arms with blood on your clothes
You've got a glow
And you're no one's but mine
And nobody knows the land where he's lying
No heat in his bones
No heart that was mine
No hand that I'd hold
And you've got a glow, you've got a glow
(And there's no escaping, the thing that is making its home in your radio)
You're light in a lie
You're lithe and you're strong
And you've wanted to do that, my love, for so long
My live and dead men
Come into the den
You've got a glow
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Other reviews
By maryP
Listening to this album means entering, or rather bursting into, the sometimes magical, sometimes romantic and melancholic, sometimes terribly real and dramatic world of singer and songwriter Will Sheff.
A real storyteller’s voice. And as is fitting for a good storyteller, when he finishes his tale, you wish he would start again from the beginning.
