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The new wave of Zach Rogue has landed in "Napoleon Dynamite." The project is not explicitly nerdy or youthful, like the recent MTV-promoted film, but the Oakland composer deeply understands the dynamics of provincial life, albeit Californian, marked by a faint, insinuating, and retro lyricism.
After previous musical experiences, Rogue forms "his" true band, and with the contribution of self-ironic and carefree multi-instrumentalists (Spurgeon, Le Bron, Farrell), he creates "Out of Shadow," a series of flashes of light extracted from the gaseous, omnipresent, and still explorable material of the '60s: tones leaning towards the major, phrases between singer-songwriter tradition and folk, happily muffled arrangements. The typically adolescent journey into non-existent oases, perhaps never existed, is unveiled in the second long-playing record, unraveling while claiming descending scales and gloominess.
The cover already diverges from pop madness, anticipated in the bold, black line, by that hand with the bloodied finger of a starter single CD from a few months ago ("10:1"). The undertaker-vulture pronounces unexpectedly dense smoke clouds, descends on the almost institutional simplicity of guitar solos, overturns the sense of nursery rhymes and recalls the function of the choirs: similar to that denaturation of the Beach Boys' weave that Brian Wilson carried out last year. They are choirs (not always vocal but ideal) echoes of the moorland/prairie/beach, phantom warnings that descend on consciences from trees and hills to unfold the slumber of the innards of America. If the harmonic openings still dominate "Bird on a Wire" and "Publish My Love", the enveloping dark humor is unleashed in the subsequent tracks to testify to the gap between the noisy world and the intimate world of Rogue Wave, the chasm that the frontman himself admits exists: between hope and reality.
Before the diaristic closure, there is time for the instrumental fullness of "You", reconciliation after the chaotic central experience of "10:1", piano, and synth in cells for a crescendo trance.
(3/1/2006)
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Bird on a Wire (03:40)
Are you hoping to get out of this mess
truckloads of coffee, conditioned to confess
you’re a bird on a wire
and you’re wrestling
who’s dirty laundry are you turning out fresh
little miss bossy is brimming with breast
you’re a bird on a wire
and you’re wrestling
no station is final
popping the pricks and the pins
are you stopping to smell the good sins
are you stopping to lift the good dress
geriatric at 20 years old
break like a matchstick as soon as you’re told
you’re a bird on a wire
and you’re wrestling
no station is final
don’t do what I do
(you’re rotting now)
yah whatever, she said
04 Catform (03:12)
Legless, with the powerder puff
you’ve got light, still cannot read
and the mattress is two bored-out eyes
supposed to be a lightening bolt
but as I lie in bed
it’s been middle class
middle thoughts, middle as C
tantric forms of intercourse
no divorce, drunk as a horse
and the waitress is the only one
who can speak and say what she means
as I lie awake
it’s been Camelot
I can a lot, it’s kennel and key
as she’s waiting
stroking my hair
choking places
stroking my tie
princes with the dollar eyes
morning fries and light-up TV
and advances in the sweater vest
picking homes, picking out cheese
as i lie to them
second wallabee
second son
what happened to me
08 Are You on My Side (04:19)
I'm coming in close in a boat by the lake
I can't propose and I kept you awake
I've looked for your nose unless a mistake (?)
Has been don't matter (?)
Run through checkers and endless designs
Of run down papers and French concubines
Dorian Gray or a rat down the Rhine
Stupid panic
But are you on my side?
I hug the friends, it's just needles and pins
Cavalry's here they just won't let you in
They think that it's Greek when it's Pig Latin
A penned in firefight
But are you on my side?
Are you on my side?
I know you been around
09 Medicine Ball (01:54)
I've had two sins and I'm hotter than him
and I don't know what it teaches
That's the moment of my weakness
I have had enough of your sermonized speeches
Where's the food that I wanted?
Out on the evening, six months ahead, sky I found deepness
Medicine ball
The Traffic's mucked, shares its spiritual secrets
come on the market I have english
and be ought no good to rend us on the beaches
stomp the juice out of its sweetness
Out on the evening, six months ahead, sky I found deepness
Medicine ball
Bridge: ...
11 Temporary (02:45)
Sometimes I feel so low
I can't go on knowin
here in the island log sharin my mind
upstairs an attic
witness the bubble breakin down the spine
when we come through the rain almost by design
upstairs an attic
upstairs an attic
angel
angel
upstairs an attic
angel
angel
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