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Rating: I have already broken the need and didn't feel like bothering you further. Then I find a review where one of my favorite albums gets slammed.
The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic (2000).
We're in 2000 and it's worse than the foggy harbor. The young guns of 10 years earlier are already rock dinosaurs (I won't name names out of Christian charity, but we all recall the post-grunge and post-britpop junk). It's difficult to navigate this musical mire, so much so that an honest band like the Strokes seemed like the heralds of the new millennium.
And yet, these unlucky Canadians, certainly not very telegenic, led by a redhead resembling Umberto Tozzi's younger brother (Carl Newman), with a crazy singer (Neko Case) and an off-kilter songwriter (Dan Bejar), they're said to make "only" a power pop album, where "as usual" they draw from the lessons of the Byrds, the Beach Boys, the B’52s, the Pixies, and their grandma in a wheelbarrow.
But how would you define a work where every song is well-written and each one is a little classic in itself? An album that doesn't lose its thread for even a moment? Where Dan Bejar gives you a track like "Execution Day," Neko Case drills into your ears with "Letter from an Occupant," and Carl Newman serves up a "Mary Martin Show" that sounds like the Sonics of the Third Millennium?
It's one hell of an album!
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
06 Letter From an Occupant (03:46)
I'm told the eventual downfall
Is just a bill from the restaurant
You told me I could order the moon, babe
Just as long as as I shoot what I want.
What the last ten minutes have taught me
Bet the hand that your money's on
Where the hell have the 70's brought me
You traded me away long gone
For the love of a god, you say
Not a letter from an occupant
The time that your enemy gives you
Good times are not the ones you want
I've cried five rivers on the way here
Which one will you stay away on?
The tune you'll be humming forever
All the words are replaced and wrong
With a shower of "Yes" and "Whatever"s
You traded me away long gone
For the love of a god, you say
Not a letter from an occupant
Where have all sensations gone?
Where have all sensations gone?
Where have all sensations gone?
Where have all sensations gone?
For the love of a god, you say
Not a letter from an occupant
For the love of a god, you say
Not a letter from an occupant
For the love of a god, you say
Not a letter from an occupant
The song
The song
The song has shaken me
The song
The song
The song has shaken me
The song
The song
The song has shaken me
The song
The song
The song has shaken me
For the love of a god, you say
Not a letter from an occupant
For the love of a god, you say
Not a letter from an occupant
12 Breakin' the Law (03:28)
I can never place the name with the face.
Don't touch me, don't touch me up,
to the teeth, by the numbers.
It's not much but I'm going under.
Liar, Liar, everything's on fire.
So I don't want to hear how you crossed the wires.
Don't touch me, don't touch me up,
watch, I'll take it to the river.
You'll come to, little indian giver.
So give us the keys now,
we'll burn this hall of justice down.
Around the ankles, or just to the ground.
Hats off to the city fathers,
they're no longer a hundred feet tall.
They're no longer, no longer,
and we're just here,
another hundred feet stronger. Yeah!
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Other reviews
By Axelmoloko
Mass Romantic sounds like an endless party organized on the beach where carefree songs with a high energy level make you jump until dawn.
You will play this CD on Friday evening after work, on Saturday morning when heading out to enjoy the longed-for weekend, and again in the evening as an appetizer to your nighttime adventures.
