Yay! My signed copy of Burn the Maps has finally arrived!
And I've hammered out a track-by-track review for it (done at great speed, while listening to the album itself, so ignore spelling/grammar mistakes)...
1. Happy
Well, if ever a song was mistitled...
Happy begins as a heavy acoustic dirge, with spooky "whooooooo" choral sections...like Clannad being tortured by Goths. I'm not sure I'm crazy about the way Glen's voice is mixed on this. It sounds very delicate, with all the bass taken out of it. Brittle...I think that's the word I'm looking for. It suits the slowly creeping menace for the verses.
The falsetto chorus is only slightly more upbeat, introduced with major piano chord and embroidered with a spidery lead line. I definitely remember the chorus being far more joyous in live incarnations of the track.
Special mention goes to the twisted Pacman arcade cabinet solo new guitarist Rob Bochnik pulls off in the break. For comparison, think of the end of Giving Me Wings or Radiohead's Let Down. This is followed almost immediately by some completely mood inverting orchestral stabs by Colm MacAnIomaire. And yes, that's very cool. The lyrics are the complete antithesis of the title, maybe a reference to the storytelling excesses of their live albums:
"Come help me out, I'm sick from the fight. From inserting a laugh where none should be. Show me where this joke got tired, cos you know I'm slow catching on."
It doesn't get any more cheerful as the song winds to a close:
"Why are you building divides? Is it some failing in your life?"
The song ends with a rushing sound, a bit like a tamer version of the end of Early Bird. This warps into the intro for Finally, the second track and first single from the album.
2. Finally
"Did you fall on your way. It's a long way down. Welcome back to your place, hope you know it now." Ya, this isn't really partying music. At least this one is more uptempo, being propelled by an offbeat snare. The drums drop out for a modest bridge section, before winding up again for a scenery-chewing chorus. An orchestra surges through the later sections of the song. The whole thing dies down into that bridge section again, with the word "finally" being repeated like a mantra. It catches fire again at the end with Glen screaming "I love it so far" over and over to the last bar.
3. Dream Awake
This begins with a quietly pulsing guitar riff, accented with some angular lead lines (a bit like Giving Me Wings from For The Birds). The vocal is far more intimate than the previous songs, produced to sound like it's being sung about three inches from your ear. It works.
It begins in a very traditional Frames-ish way. It's quiet, sedate, serious...bringing to mind Disappointed or Friends And Foe. That was one of the things I didn't like about For The Birds...the songs seemed very static. There was one good idea in each song and it was executed brilliantly...but they didn't really go anywhere else.
Dream Awake turns into a train wreck about 2 minutes in. A military drumbeat builds up out of nowhere, with some swelling organs (stop sniggering). When the bass kicks in the drums scatter into double-time randomness. Meantime, the violin and a few guitars wind up in the background. Whale sounds appear. It starts turning into a Sigur Ros song, but they pull it back just before it spills into white noise for a downbeat acoustic coda (a little like What Happens...).
4. Caution To The Birds
This was a song recorded solo by Glen with Steve Albini, years ago. It was never my favourite song. It was too raw/unadorned. It sounded like a demo.
Well, this is the real thing, and Christ...it's heavy. The deep bass sound from Happy is back. It sounds like a Low track, with the tempo practically non-existent.
The chorus rescues it from becoming a dirge, though, with Glen doubletracked and yelling "sound, there's order in the sound" over pleasantly crunchy guitars.
After the second chorus, it dies into an almost painfully slow picked guitar. With long. yawning. pauses. stretched. between. each. note.
And then someone drops the hammer and the whole thing explodes into an Ennio Morricone widescreen sci-fi epic soundtrack (yes, it's hard to describe). The guitars are suddenly galloping across the pounding drumbeat. A few seconds later, the whole thing is lit up even further by high volume distorted guitar lead that just burns its way to the front of the mix, accompanied by howling chorus in the background.
Then it all disolves to leave the violin scraping out the lead line. You can pretty much see the Frames taking out their to-do list and scratching the word "epic" off it.
5. Trying
This was a b-side to the Fake single, so it's nothing new. It begins as a pretty little acoustic song, sung in a falsetto and again in tempo nicked from Low. The tone of the album has been fairly well established by now, it's thoroughly miserable, and this song is no exception. The mix is a little different from the b-side, with the trebly white noise that overwhelms the song at the end being given more shape. It finishes with some violin scraping before the drums thunder into Fake.
6. Fake
The song that divided Frames fans, with some claiming that this simple-minded, radio-friendly, top 5 hit had sellout written all over it.
Well, it makes sense on the album. The whole thing has been re-mixed and re-recorded, to better suit the mood (which, for those who aren't paying attention, is dark and miserable).
The intro pretty much redeems the song. Instead of the overproduced guitars on the single, the guitars here have been sandblasted and moved right to the front of the mix. Think Pixies meet Siamese Dream era Pumpkins. The verses have been left alone, although the vocals sound a little more bitter.
The guitars overwhelm the chorus, and the vocals are no longer doubletracked. The whole thing sounds a lot more frantic and the bridge section is heralded by Glen screaming "what are we crying for? I don't even know anymore..."
It does fit on the album, particularly in view of the songs before and after it, which seem to be companion pieces lyrically.
7. Sideways Down
Another quiet beginning, aping the tight muted clean sounds of the quieter passages in God Bless Mom. Bits of Rob Bochnik lead line weirdnesses float around the edges of the song. When the drums kick in, it almost sounds like a Pavement song. It's a little like Perfect Opening Line in tone until we get to the chorus, which pops up out of nowhere - surfing along on a chugging guitar with Glen delivering lines in a resigned air while the orchestra swirls around him.
After the second chorus, things get a bit weird. The Pavement style guitars chop along next to soprano choirs and Lisa Hannigan (from Damien Rice's band) doing her thing. The violins on this track are just plain strange, verging on the Divine Comedy at times...before remembering that this is supposed to be a "dark" album and diving into weirdness again.
This one has single written all over it. It's certainly nothing like any Frames track I've ever heard before.
8. Underglass
The sister piece to Another Love Song, delivered 14 years later. This is pure Pixies homage. The bass line is taken straight from Tony's Theme, the high pitched wailing from Velouria. The chorus though, is pure Frames. This is the first straightforward "rawk" song on the album. After lashing through two verses the whole thing collapses in on itself, with what sounds remarkably like someone dropping a guitar and kicking it across a studio floor. The drums scatter and then gather again for one last race through the chorus, which is screamed the whole way through. The whole thing is over in 2 minutes and finishes with a feedback hum.
Two things to notice here. Firstly this is track 8 and we still haven't heard anything which could be played on daytime radio by any DJ who wanted a job the next day. Secondly, this song only shifts the mood from downbeat to frantic, without doing anything to alleviate to darkness in the album. I can't really see it sitting next to Busted and Westlife in a teenager's CD collection. But then again, I figured For the Birds would be a massive failure, so who am I to say?
9. Ship Caught in the Bay
Ever wonder what the Frames covering Bjork would sound like? Well, here's your answer. This opens with a tape loop, like a track from Vespertine or Deus' "Let's See Who Goes Down First". It reminds me a little of Pearl Jam's "Who Are We" from the No Code album. This being the Frames, Glen switches back to his intimate over your shoulder singing style, quietly delivering lines like:
"and what is it that we don't do well enough, that we're constantly afraid?"
It trundles along peacefully in this vein for a while, doing nothing in particular. I had already tagged it as a standard, static For the Birds song, with a bit of tape looping to make it more interesting.
And then it comes over all Radiohead. It starts with cut up drums (think Airbag or Packt Like Sardines). Then some of those spacey synths enter and make whale noises before being cut up into vicious tape loops...like Idioteque. The whole thing ends with a Karma Police-style bleeding guitar noise.
The whole Radiohead thing is over in about a minute, and it's hard not to think that it's all a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it suits them surprisingly well.
10. Keepsake
Back to lush, acoustic, and depressing.
"I'm keeping this as a keepsake, and everything else I'm burning".
The verses trickle along pleasantly, with barely strummed clean electric guitar, clicking drums, and the by now signature glassy guitar lines from Rob Bochnik. A lone violin keens through vocals, wringing every last bit of melancholy from the lyrics.
The song has nice "anti-chorus", where things slow down and all the instruments drop out except for the guitar.
After the second chorus, things get...strange. It starts as a traditional, Fitzcarraldo-era spookathon...like Evergreen or Angel At My Table. The guitars play slightly off key and bass sounds random. But the whole time there's a guitar gathering dust in the background, getting louder and louder...like Santa Maria. The white noise keeps growing and it's reined in by new guitars which are added to the pile-up playing sensible rhythms, until they too degenerate into noise one-by-one. The violin saws away at a manic line while guitars are ascending into dog-frequencies in the background. Someone's definitely been listening to Mogwai (Ratts of the Capital, if I had to guess). In the meantime, Glen's been listening to Radiohead, muttering lines like:
"they're hunting me down like an insect"
The whole builds and builds until it resolves into one guitar strumming slowly into a fadeout.
11. Suffer In Silence
Another one that begins like a traditional folky Frames ballad. Solo acoustic, and Glen at his most depressing.
When it finally winds up, it reminds me a lot of Radiohead's How To Disappear Completely. But just before it floats away on keening guitars and murmuring vocals, you get stabbed in the ear by an orchestra. Really. It's a very unusual feeling.
12. Locusts
This is an old, old song. It was written in the wake of Mic Christopher's death, so it's not exactly cheery. That said, it's not quite as miserable as some of the other tracks. It's got a strange country vibe going on. It's another downtempo acoustic crawl, but it's leavened by some hovering violins and some strange birdcalls from the lead guitar. The tune really takes off with a cute little piano riff at the end of the second chorus. I don't know why, but it reminds me of Christmas bells. This stretches into another slow burning mix of violins and high pitched guitars swooping off over the horizon.
The whole thing finishes on a heavily processed organ riff, to the point where it almost sounds hopeful. Almost, but not quite.
