Posts in category "Random"

Album Review: No Motiv, Daylight Breaking

I real­ly have to say some­thing about No Motiv. When I first heard them, it was in prepa­ra­tion of a con­cert I was going to when they were open­ing for Strung Out about four years ago. I did­n’t real­ly like their first two albums aside from a few songs. They had a dis­tinct sound, but their lyrics, like advice from a com­fort­ing friend, did­n’t quite match. This band was like those kids I nev­er real­ly knew in high school, who weren’t pop­u­lar but had their own clique nonethe­less, and spent their free time mak­ing up songs and prac­tic­ing their instru­ments. The guys I’d sort of root for, not because their music blew me away, but because there was no one to appre­ci­ate them.

Their lat­est album, how­ev­er, takes things in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion, hint­ed at in the album title “Daylight Breaking”. It’s dark­er, it’s mood­i­er, and it’s more devel­oped. Jeremy has clear­ly become more con­fi­dent with his singing, and this goes hand-in-hand with the new range of sound that they’ve devel­oped, from qui­et and bar­ren to heavy and angry. In pre­vi­ous albums, he sound­ed con­strict­ed, but now screams emo­tion­al­ly with con­trolled unre­straint. The lyrics demon­strate a new matu­ri­ty, and present a log­i­cal pro­gres­sion from their pre­vi­ous work. This is the album that they were meant to write, an album that makes them musi­cians and not just band mem­bers.

Now, as I lis­ten to their old­er mate­r­i­al, every­thing clicks, and I real­ize that I just was­n’t ready for this music four years ago. I don’t have any music that’s quite like this; a jour­ney through a com­ing-of-age that’s filled with ener­getic hope­ful­ness, along with the ups and downs asso­ci­at­ed with per­son­al growth, a sort of inspir­ing sad­ness. The lyrics bring me back to being a teenag­er again, when I thought peo­ple on TV were nor­mal, and believed that I should have been going through the same dain­ty prob­lems. It makes me think of what I want­ed to expe­ri­ence a long time ago, but nev­er had the chance.

Paying The Cat Tax

The key to win­ning over a cat is to pay the cat tax. Whenever I enter a room with a cat in it, whether it’s com­ing out of the show­er, com­ing home from work, or just walk­ing around the apart­ment, I’ll give the cat a lit­tle scratch. It lets them know that their pres­ence is rec­og­nized, and that they’re nev­er ignored, not even once. It’s a small price to pay to have a cat who’s friend­ly and trust­ing.

Jealousy Trap

If this entry deserved a title, it would be “Really Really Really”.

Pat talks about how jeal­ous Jen gets some­times, and describes it as a heat ema­nat­ing from her body, like a mild sun on the face that he can feel from across the room. We joke, we laugh, a good time is had by all.

Then I remem­ber myself feel­ing that once, just once, on a day when she was inse­cure and some­one else was talk­ing to me a lit­tle too ebul­lient­ly. The look. THE LOOK she gave her, like a moth­er bear star­ing down some­one who got between her and her cubs.

And I remem­ber not lik­ing that feel­ing, as if I was the one who had to apol­o­gize for some­thing, when I had done noth­ing wrong at all.

But I think to myself, now, how I would­n’t mind feel­ing that way just one more time.

>:)

Pieces Of April

I real­ly don’t know what I was expect­ing from Pieces of April, but its doc­u­men­tary-style direct­ing and well thought out script made it an effec­tive movie nonethe­less. In the end, Peter Hedges presents the last few scenes in still pho­tographs, let­ting the audi­ence come up with their own reac­tions and dia­logue. All one is sure of is that every­thing is resolved, and every­one is hav­ing a good time. And for a movie like this, that becomes the most impor­tant thing.

Bel Canto

I’ve been try­ing to fig­ure out how Bel Canto has cre­at­ed such ice cold music, then I real­ized that a lot of the mood comes not only from the chords, but the instru­ments them­selves. Most of them have no rever­ber­a­tion, and the ones that do begin with a stac­ca­to prick. On top of that, there’s no steady beat, just awk­ward, mil­i­tary style plucks. Add in some airy vocals with what I assume is a sopra­no sax (it’s a lit­tle too brassy to be a clar­inet, but sounds like a reed instru­ment nonethe­less), and almost any type of music would sound cold.