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Rating:
Let's go to 1995, to the seventh effort of our YLT, after the excellent works of May I Sing With Me and Painful. The album, a solid Indie Rock/Noise Pop, often overshadowed by critics, is entirely traversed and dominated by Kaplan's guitar reverberations, his counterpoints and dissonances, sometimes granite, sometimes hypnotic, sometimes dreamlike. Hubley's fragile soprano gains more and more space, and rightly so. Kaplan also enjoys playing the organ with percussive linearity. McNew is always well-mannered on bass. On drums, Hubley is a guarantee, impulsive and measured, as and when needed.
Perhaps a bit disjointed, but not yet blurred, the LP does not lack excellent episodes, starting with Tom Courtenay, a pop with Beatles-like evocation, with regard to the English beat of the sixties. The melody is so accomplished that Dante would say "ti fia chiavata in mezzo de la testa con maggior chiovi che d'altrui sermone." The final jam, Blue Line Swinger, well explicates the noise aspect of the band, inspired by "Gioventù Sonica," and goes on to replicate I Heard You Looking (from "Painful," an astounding instrumental, "da paura" indeed), adding Hubley's admirable singing, in a magnificent and long progression vaguely kraut, but reaching its peak. False Alarm is a dissonant, edgy spoken track, full of sobs and clamor, with boogie-like cadences. Flying Lesson proceeds between Velvet Underground and Joy Division, paying homage to both while concealing them. The nocturnal, rarefied, and expansive The Hour Grows Late is bequeathed both to Dream pop and Gospel (at least as a concept).
A minor album of YLT, but of great craft, complex in its textures, never predictable in its outcomes: among many citations, or rather references, the continuation of an absolutely personal discourse.
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 Decora (03:27)
I see you crawling across the floor
Never see you standing anymore
You take whatever's put in your hand
You ask for more until you can't
It's not the first time you'll take a fall
Act like you've never sleen double before
We tie deep into the past
Take this chance with me cause it's your last
06 Blue Line Swinger (09:19)
You, you won't talk about what we see when the lights are out
And I'm willing to hold your hand while you're lost,
while you're so full of doubt
Walk for miles, on your own loose ends, I'll find you there
I'll find you there
You, you walk up thin blue lines possible with reality
And I, I see through small red eyes,
glowing still at your uncertainty
Out of darkness you will come around, I know you will
I know you will
And I'll find you
And I'll find you there
07 Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1) (06:42)
Eyes go places that you can't see
It's not that easy to hide from me
I hear the whispers everywhere I go
I hear the laughter everywhere I go
3 AM with the TV on
4 AM, TV on
The nervous ticking of my heart
Restlessness when we're apart
Think about the last thing that we said
Again and again it runs through my head
And I hear footsteps that aren't yours
They sound like yours, but they all do
Not much left for me to pray
Why sleep or dream when I'm awake
My eyes in places you forgot to look
My eyes in places you forgot to look
09 Tom Courtenay (03:30)
Julie Christie, the rumors are true
As the pages turn, my eyes are glued
To the movie star and his sordid life
Mr. Ex and his old-suffering wife
I spent so much time dreaming about Eleanor Bron
In my room with the curtains drawn
See her in the arms of Paul
Say it, I can say no more
As the music swells somehow stronger from adversity
Our hero finds his inner peace
So now I'm looking for a lucky charm
With a needle hanging out of its arm
As time goes by I know it's gonna happen
I know it's going away
Gonna take its toll, gonna take its toll
Gonna take my time
And I'm thinking about the way things are
And I'm thinking about the way things were
Thinking about Eleanor Bron
And I'm thinking about a lucky charm
And I'm thinking about the needle
Oh, I'm thinking about the needle
And I'm thinking about..
11 Pablo And Andrea (04:16)
show me where you keep all your secrets upstairs
night after night you sleep while they're setting off flares
someone came and took all the roses away
now you'll sit showing me tears if you want me to stay
cause down the street all the meters have run out of time
run out of time
I waited for you as the trees swayed out of time
in a crowded room I pick up your lonely stare
I'll cover for you like a slipcover covers a chair
but someone came and took all the roses away
it was only 5 minutes, it felt like it stretched into a day
someone came and took all the roses away
took all the roses away
took all the roses away
13 False Alarm (05:28)
Oh no, I think I'm falling for a false alarm
Like an all-day second stuck
Until you crunch the right arm
Well if I open my eyes, if I just pay attention to McNew
Well, I just held back
To listen to your cues
So it's not enough I never meant to hold you down
Waiting for the firestorm
Waiting for the false alarm
Well, is it really true? Well, I know, I mean I guess, uh, why not
Well is it really true, I don't know,
Too hard to figure out
I'm gonna mark my words, cross my eyes and stomp my feet
Cause I don't want you feeling bad, feeling bad, feeling
Worse than you do
Well, I'll stand my ground, hide behind a fake smile
Think I'll talk about something else
Just for a little while
Aw, said it once, said it twice, said it - you can tell it's the same old tune
Straight down to the bitter end
Tell me when there's more to go there soon
It's gonna hold my tongue in place, think about what to do
If you don't see nothing wrong this time
Well I'm taking it out on you
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