sawmill

we still believe in music

[saw-mill]

Follow me on Cymbal!

If you don't have Cymbal, it's a fantastic music social network that is really taking off. Like Instagram for songs you didn't make. Check it out, make me a taste-maker! @ sawmill (with no space between the @ and sawmill).

[saw-mill]

Marietta - “As It Were” (P)review

Here’s a small taste of the Marietta review I’m working on. More to come very soon. Check out this record. 

I’ve listened to Summer Death several hundred times, front to back, back to front, shuffled, one song at a time, over and over, obsessively. Marietta’s freshman LP lived and breathed with me through Fall and Winter of 2013. What I downloaded as a “let’s see what that band who did a split with Modern Baseball I really enjoyed is up to” turned into my album of the year. Out of left field, on the periphery of my emo devouring ears, Summer Death ripped through me like a disease. And still, almost two years later, I cannot, for the life of me, put the why of it into words. Not completely. There is something so honed, yet painfully naive and honest about the human experience within the songs of Summer Death. I have wanted to review Summer Death for so long, but I’m not going to. There’s no point. I can’t summon one constructive, non-personal thing to say about the album. I let the record grow in, on and around me. It stands as my favorite album of all-time. I have more bias about it than almost anything else — I’m not going to offend anyone by trying to talk about it in any other capacity.

It’s my past with Marietta that’s got me so fucking excited about “As It Were,” Marietta’s summer surprise album. At first listen, I was supremely delighted. I had things to say about this album, and they weren’t all rosy-posy bullshit.

[saw-mill]

Secret Grief invite listeners to be sad, think about life & stuff in crushing LP Sea of Trees

Disclaimer

I am an English major who has never written a full music review. The review that follows is as much a critical essay as it is a conventional review, so I apologize if that’s not your thing. I’m still finding my lens, or voice or whatever you want to call it, so bear with me and don’t be surprised if further reviews are vastly different. I’m also very sorry about my complete ineptitude to bass. I have no idea how to even detect the driving instrument in most tracks. So, don’t hate me, bassists of the world.  Finally, as a writer, I hold very strongly to the belief that the writer and the speaker are two different people. The person singing is not necessarily the person talking, and I urge you to consider this while listening. Thanks.

I’m going to get this out of the way right now. Secret Grief has a lot in common with emo darlings The Hotelier. Both changed their names before releasing a sophomore LP which found them tinkering with pop punk. Then on the next release the tinkering has become wholesale reimagining, and we’re given a cinematic, (and I argue decidedly emo) mature release that sees the band grow in every way. What’s missing for Secret Grief, for whatever reason, is the hype. I remember being told I would love Home, Like Noplace is There months before I’d heard a track. And while I did love it, I wonder how much hype served to bump review scores and general opinions. Nobody made those promises here. My own hype for the album had been waxing and waning since the 2010 release of It’ll Still be There When You’re Ready for It. I am not a patient person, so practically five years and a few hiatus scares later, I am not pulling punches.

Lucky for everyone, Secret Grief has managed to put out a record that, while not perfect, leaves me looking hard for criticism.

Secret Grief has always been about the burden of existence and the search for some kind of outlet. Even as Tiger! Tiger! the band sought truth in songs like “I Salsa Your Face” or “Tralfamadore,” be it about some deity or extraterrestrial life. But the band has grown up, both from considering religion as forced and from the youthful hope that life exists on other planets. Sea of Trees is instead mostly about killing yourself. It’s a natural, albeit tragic progression from previous releases. The album’s name on its own implies the subject’s omnipresence. Aokigahara, or ‘The Sea of Trees’ is a forest in Japan often called ‘The Suicide Forest.’ The forest has both mythological and real world ties to death, with dozens of suicides in its quiet confines yearly. It’s seen an influx of western interest since the 1960s, and more recently with a short Vice documentary on the subject.

The album begins with a theatrical sounding introduction instrumentally akin to the works of Forgive Durden’s Razia’s Shadow called “Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep.” The song is named for a famous poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye in which the speaker reminds their loved one that while they are dead, they live on in nature. The song itself focuses on the worry many people have about leaving an imprint on the world when they’re gone. It acts as a thematic bridge between the more existential, crunchy reality talk stuff of previous releases and moves us seamlessly into the whole suicide thing. “My thought process could cease to be / and still it would not change a thing,” Nelson says, with a hint of exasperated longing. From this point, we know what to expect. The speaker is conflicted between a strong desire to leave (via suicide) and an equally strong desire to leave an impression on the world.

The album’s tone follows remains focused on this fear and the result is a long-winded (not used pejoratively) slog (again, not a bad thing) through depression, fear and anxiety. Instrumentally, the album follows a similar progression from the pop punk/Gatsbys American Dream tinged energy of Tiger! Tiger! flourishing especially on the second track “The Black Horse of Night.” In the song itself, the instrumental heaviness really sets in as Nelson sings “The black horse of night haunts my dreams.” The best instrumental comparison I can find for the remainder of the tracks is Brand New. Which is a heavy comparison for a band to shoulder, but they pull it off alarmingly well, potentially daring the association with a song title like “Daisy.” The penultimate track follows the perfectly toned, brilliantly executed instrumental track “January 27” which hit me with immediate Boys Night Out (specifically Trainwreck) nostalgia. “Daisy,” while not initially my favorite track, is the boys of Secret Grief at their finest. The subdued track does in fact sound pretty akin to middle/late era Brand New, but it never gets anywhere near the territory of a boring carbon copy: quiet ‘oohs’ layer beneath sparse but pointed drum work, feedback riddled guitar and a synthesizer that appears in a few songs in the few perfect moments that call for it.

I could spend a lot of time talking about “Aokigahara,” a sprawling, self-contained, near-twelve minute monster of a closing track, so I will. I’m mostly interested the turn at around the five minute mark to this upbeat and honest apology for a person who’s already decided they’re dead. If the line “…I should deal with these repressed emotions,” is considered some shred of doubt, they are promptly dismissed by the closing five minutes.  In those last moments of the album, as the instrumentation relaxes from its swelling and synthesizers return to the forefront, I wasn’t sure what to think. Throughout this track the instrumentation and the lyrics suggest some kind of triumph. As if suicide is the overcoming of a painful life—the light at the end of the darkness that leads to what, more darkness? Many non-western cultures hold suicide in a different light. In Japan, home to the forest, suicide was for a time considered to be an honorable action taken by a disgraced individual. While their government’s concerted effort to reduce the number of suicides is evidenced by signs throughout the forest, the suicides continue. It’s perhaps these signs that the speaker in the song is trying to explain himself to when he says “Is it so bad to be wondering / If I were to die would it mean anything?” If I were to transcribe all the lyrics I wanted here, I’d give you most of the song, so rather, I’ll urge you to just listen for yourself.

I’d say the most poignant line from the last song comes when Nelson sings “Do you really want me to live like this, / constantly questioning my existence?” Here is an album concerned with existence to the point of exhaustion. In that exhaustion is immense catharsis that, in spite of the weight the album has placed on the listener, lightens anyone struggling to find purpose. There’s a community in depression and listlessness and the fight to overcome them. But is there a point in struggling on when everything tells you to quit? I think this album represents an interesting step in the right direction in regards to talking about suicide. In a country with a growing number of suicide advocates and opponents, all discourse needs to be considered. But politics aside, the album stands as a properly excellent, unfiltered dive into the mind of many twenty-somethings. Sea of Trees is an immense scream through the quiet forest of the psyche that leaves every question unanswered, the way it has to be.

Sea of Trees is out now via Triple Deke Records. Pre-order vinyl here. Purchase digitally or stream here. 

[saw-mill]

Just when I thought Frances Quinlan couldn't push her voice any further the good old folks in Hop Along release this quick-tempo stunner. As the guitar licks funkify a little more than halfway through the song Quinlan’s rasp reaches a new height of perfection. But as always, that’s one side of a coin with a lot more than two sides (so maybe like a die you’d use in Dungeons and Dragons with like 16 or whatever) as Hop Along can sing real pretty for us when they choose to. If you hoped to find in Hop Along a band that’s afraid to pull stops and change things up with every release then you've come to the wrong place. Pre-order this future AOTY from Saddle Creek today and check out the first single from the upcoming album!

[saw-mill]

Blis positions itself as indie royalty on its new EP

I know what I fuckin’ said. I’d be posting a list soon, but I didn’t yet. Instead, I’m sharing some seriously underrated stuff that is about to blow up. This is Blis’ stream of their new EP Starting Fires in my Parents’ House.

I don’t think I’m the first to say that the band sounds a bit like a million things I’ve already heard, but in such a perfectly layered and brilliant way that I’d be a fucking idiot to say it wasn’t original. And excellent. Take for instance, the song “Floating Somewhere High and Above.” About halfway through you can hear at once Andy Hull’s Georgian affectation in both vocals and religious imagery (Blis. belong to the Peach State as well), Brand New’s Devil and God… era screams and about a million other things. You could say Isaac Brock’s neo-bluesy wavering voice also bleeds through in a lot of places. Then again I could say that the vocalist sounds a bit like the vocalist of a few different bands but I don’t want to get too caught up in that. 

Instead, just listen to it. If you’re into the idea of an emo-er All Get Out (who are great, if you haven’t heard) give these dudes your ear and get their EP when it comes out via Soft Speak Records on February 10th. 

[saw-mill]

Statement of Purpose

I. Introduction

Hello, I am sawmill, or millsaw, as my name must be. I like music. I love to talk about music. I do not play music. The music I listen to is great, if you ask me (people rarely do, perhaps that's why I'm blogging to no one). It's mostly sad stuff, ranging from emo (king) to folk and a bit of everything else. I graduated college very recently with a Bachelor's degree in English and a concentration in Creative Writing. I do not have a job where I get to write. This is sad, but I'll persevere. 

II. Intent

I intend to inundate you with the inane and never use big words like that again. I hope to make you like new music. I hope to make new friends. I hope to be heard and help other people speak up. We aren't making grand statements in any conventional sense, but to me, music can be a grand ol' statement if you let it. 

III. Expectations

There will be ironic listicles, bad jokes and some questionable taste, but in the end you will like me or dislike me quickly. I hope to produce content that's somewhat original with reviews of albums that are not reviewed frequently by the big guys (in this case, those big guys are sites like absolutepunk or Pitchfork).

IV. Preview of my Purview 

Maybe you're unclear about 'content that's somewhat original,' that's okay--I am too. In this world, we hear a lot of the same thing, and I'm choosing to write a lot about a 'revival,' so how do I keep myself from repeating myself and everyone else? With a little inspiration from the trendy new Internet that formats viral posts like mathematical equations. No, you won't see 'The 43 Most Influential Cap'n Jazz Chords,' but you will see things that let me get the word out on albums you might not know about. 

So, what do you get to read from me first? 

My whole inspiration for this blog came from a shower thought. Thinking of Cloakroom's latest analog art-piece in shoe-gaze 'Further Out,' I was reminded of how many album covers feature people lying down. Not that many, but enough to give me a title: Six and Supine: Six Albums You Might Like that Feature People Lying Down on the Cover. Hard hitting stuff. Look for it soon, and expect to see Cloakroom on there. Maybe go listen to them now.