Arts & Culture
Bright Eyes
Polarizing indie icon Conor Oberst lobs his first full-length studio album since 2005’s simultaneous releases I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. Cassadaga, Florida, renowned “Psychic Center of the World” and the “South’s Oldest Spiritualist Community,” is the CD’s namesake. Songs about self-cleansing, balancing out and finding home emphasize the spiritual theme. “Four Winds” – on loan from this spring’s eponymous EP – and the Janet Weiss-drummed “Hot Knives” come as close as Americana can get to head-banging and fist-pumping. “Middleman” flaunts Iron & Wine-worthy breaths of grainy fiddling and “I Must Belong Somewhere” alone embodies enough colorful imagery to defend Oberst’s visionary status. Tribal beats and vocals feel fresh on the atmospheric “Coat Check Dream Song.” “Make A Plan To Love Me” begins as an airy lullaby swirled with female a capella, but becomes so over-produced that it winds up leaning toward theatrical score. Though delivering memorable storytelling and big hooks, the majority of songs also surrender to the same excessive polishing. Gone is the raw zest and neighing naiveté that made Fevers and Mirrors such a powerful release. Oberst even sings “…was a hopeless romantic/now I’m just turning tricks,” a possible reference to fatiguing artistic expression. Is our precious Conor jading over, growing up and abandoning his wild ways? Cassadaga is an attempt to convince, but he’ll most likely still be spitting into microphones, stumbling over amplifiers and wrangling up girls with nice shoes on the album’s supporting tour. Just as he should be. VS
May 1st, 2007 by Amber Herzog
A Shot in the Dark
The Boulevard Ensemble closes its 21st anniversary season with a murder-mystery comedy by Harry Kurnitz, adapted from an original French work by Marecl Archard. It’s a fun, well-balanced comedy adeptly directed by the Boulevard’s Mark Bucher. Bucher has assembled a surprisingly good cast for the final show of a memorable 21st season of theatre in Bay View. I believe it was Alistair Cooke who said that a shot in the dark doesn’t take much time. Well, the Boulevard has certainly taken its time in getting to this one, ending its latest season with a production that feels deftly aimed. The talented Joe Fransee holds together the center of the play as Magistrate Paul Sevigne, who is investigating the death of a Spaniard (Cesar Gamino). The action of the play takes place in Sevigne’s office as he interviews people who might’ve been involved in the murder and is aided in this work by Morestan – his chief clerk played by the ample Al Dobyns. Fransee’s charisma goes a long way here, but it’s the timing between Fransee and Dobyns that really pulls together the center of the play. All of the usual mucking about with exposition that goes on in a mystery is made all the more palatable by the interaction of Fransee and Dobyns. In places, they almost seem to be fencing with the dialogue, which isn’t done enough in local theatre. Fransee has a tight, crisp precision to the delivery of his lines that woks well with Dobyns overall affability. The chief suspect in the murder of the Spaniard is his lover: parlor maid Yvette Lantenay, played by Anne Miller. Lantenay was found at the scene of the crime holding the gun that killed the victim just moments after his death. The Spaniard’s last words even implicated her as the murderer. In spite of all the evidence against her, it is clear that Lantenay did not commit the crime and a good portion of the play rests on the audience’s acceptance of this. We must not think for a second that Lantenay is the murderer; otherwise all of Sevigne’s work to find the true murderer would seem remarkably tedious. Here, the casting of Anne Miller is crucial. To her credit, Miller has a sweet, innocent stage presence; it would be very difficult to imagine Miller as a killer. This is staggeringly important, as the same could not be said of every actress in town. Bucher’s choice in casting Miller does wonders for the production. Other notable performances here include Liz Mistelle as Sevigne’s beautiful wife and Jennifer LaPorte as a wealthy lady of high society. The decision to split the play’s three acts with two intermissions would seem a bit indulgent, but so much of the play relies on plot points revealed solely in the dialogue that two intermissions are welcome. Each intermission allows the audience some distance from the plot to turn it around and possibly figure out who the actual killer is. Bucher and company keep the […]
May 1st, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
Robbie Fulks
By Allison Berndt The best way to describe Robbie Fulks’ new album Revenge! is to call it an eclectic hillbilly mix produced live on the road for an audience that’s looking for some good ol’ country music alongside a good laugh. Well, it’s true. Fulks, known for his catchy country songs and humorous lyrics, has put together an impressive collection of his very best. Hints of jazz, bluegrass and even a little ‘50s rock are evident in this generally hillbilly-esque compilation. Revenge! is a two-CD set of live recordings, half of which are brand-new songs. “I Like Being Left Alone” is a perfect example of a song that makes you laugh while engaging you musically with a charming melody. The best tracks on the album include previous hits “I Want to Be Mama’d” and “Cigarette State,” as well as a cover of Cher’s “Believe.” Fulks goes off on a guitar tangent that’ll take the listener through some masterful riffs in “Mama’d,” and “Cigarette State” is bound to be a crowd pleaser no matter where or when you hear it – it’s a staple in his repertoire. To hear a western cover of “Believe” is laughable in general, but even more so with the adaptation Fulks provides. Slower and more serious, “The Buck Starts Here” is a great theme that showcases a classic twangy country sound. Revenge! has a smattering of everything on it: old songs and new, covers and originals and any tempo for which you could be in the mood. It’s a solid collection with one constant element: hillbilly. VS
May 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
Tartuffe
The con is on once more. Moliere’s classic tale of deception through feigned piety climbs the stage again in a glossy, big-budget Milwaukee Rep production. Just months after the Skylight Opera closed its production of the musical adaptation of Moliere’s comedy, The Rep opens a more traditional interpretation of the story. Director Joseph Hanreddy has opted for a highly kinetic slapstick approach that engages the audience without any real attempt to find any deeper insight into Moliere’s masterpiece. Longtime Rep Resident Acting Company member Lee Ernst plays the title role of a religious hypocrite who schemes his way into the household of a wealthy man in the interest of taking him for as much as he can get. Ernst is explosively over the top. He’s taken the role to the edge of physical comedy and beyond. Rarely has he been so animate on stage. It’s the type of performance that bigger audiences adore, but it leaves something to be desired from jaded theatre critics. Moliere’s script leaves an impressive amount of room for plumbing the subtle depths of human manipulation with the title character. Ernst’s performance here possesses a manic disregard for subtlety. It may be fun to watch, but it’s a guilty pleasure. The decision to do Tartuffe as somewhat highbrow slapstick doesn’t drown ALL the subtleties of the play. Marianne, daughter of Tartuffe’s victim, is played here with an insightful flourish by Emily Trask. When Orgon (played here by Peter Silbert) offers Tartufe her hand in marriage, it complicates things considerably for Marianne, whose heart belongs to another man. In so many productions this role gets played simply as the comedy of over-emotional youth being hopelessly dramatic about young love. Trask’s performance goes way beyond this. Her rendering of the character has a playful kind of sympathy for it. Trask seems to have brilliant instincts for subtle physical comedy. At one point, she’s face down on the floor center stage in emotional grief. All is silent. She raises her head ever so slightly and lets it fall. The audience laughs. The production lingers on this moment for just a bit longer. Dorine (a sharp Elizabeth Ledo) cautiously says a few more things to her. Marianne ever-so-delicately pounds her head into the floor a couple more times. It’s never overdone. Trask’s timing is perfect. We feel just a bit more for Marianne than less accomplished productions have managed in the past. Most of the rest of the people in the cast follow their usual strengths in roles that they fall into quite nicely. Rose Pickering carries her considerable stage presence to this production in the role of Orgon’s respected mother who has nothing but respect for Tartuffe. Deborah Staples is charming as Orgon’s wife Elmire, who is forced into the unenviable position of having to attempt to snare Tartuffe to reveal his hypocrisy. Jonathan Gillard Daly is shrewd as the honest, respectable Cleante. This is a thoroughly professional cast putting in a thoroughly professional production, but it’s moments like […]
May 1st, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
Andrew Bird/Apostle of Hustle @ Alverno’s Pitman Theatre, April 21
Announcing that the audience at Alverno’s Pitman Theatre was about to experience the venue’s only ‘rock’ show of the season, opening act Apostle of Hustle began their set. It was filled with punchy banter from front man Andrew Whiteman, flippant statements on politics, co-eds and drug culture and lots of new material from their latest release National Anthem of Nowhere. The set swapped southwestern indie rock sounds with indie pop rock, pleasing fans, intriguing first-time listeners and warming the crowd well for the headliner. Chicagoan Andrew Bird (whose music is based on the excellent combination of big sounds and big words) returned to Milwaukee for his first ‘big-venue’ appearance at the Pitman Theatre (his previous Milwaukee shows have been at the former Gil’s Café and the Miramar Theatre). And while Whiteman may have dubbed the evening a “rock show,” true-blue Bird fans knew they were in for much more than that. Armed with his latest collection of songs from Armchair Apocrypha, his two touring pals Martin Dosh (drums, keys) and Jeremy Ylvisaker (guitar, bass) from Minneapolis and two of the coolest amps ever created by Chicago luthier Ian Schneller – a single horn shaped like a gramophone and a double-spinning-horn amp called a “Janus Horn”– Bird and company created a stunning mini-orchestra. Bird hushed the audience with his whimsical croon, sparkling, world-famous whistle and glockenspiel combination, and his amazing ability to layer guitar and violin via a sampler. Bird even shook off his shoes, giving himself easier toe-push access to the buttons on his sampler, arranging a base of guitar, then plucked up his violin, setting his Janus amp a-spinning to bow his way through renditions of “Fiery Crash” and “Imitosis.” He later took it solo with “Masterfade” (the audience helping him along with his brain-farted lyrics) and “Dr. Stringz,” dedicated to his nieces and from his television appearance on kids TV network Noggin. Bird pulled the show together by weaving in stories about his travels in France and how they were the partial inspiration for his new material. “Plasticities,” he said, is a song born from a breakfast of oatmeal and accompanied by four looped songs in a topsy-turvy French hotel, while an attempted car-parking in Bordeaux before a show gave us “Heretics.” Storytime ended and Bird finished up the set with material from The Mysterious Production of Eggs (“Skin Is, My” and “Tables and Chairs” ) and “Scythian Empires” from Armchair. The audience, picture-perfect up until now, politely hushed during songs and wildly cheering in-between, couldn’t resist any longer as a few made their way down the aisle, dancing and twirling to Bird’s literary indie symphony. VS To view more images from the show, click HERE.
Apr 24th, 2007 by Erin Wolf
A Walk In The Woods
A park bench seems innocent enough until you get it on stage. What might casually be seen as an unsuspecting piece of furniture in its aural habitat takes on a whole new personality when it is placed in front of an audience. In Edward Albee’s Zoo Story, a bench is a silent witness to murder; it may as well be an accomplice. In Mark St. Germain’s Ears On A Beatle a park bench bears witness to meetings between FBI agents whose values slowly shift. And in Lee Blessing’s Walk In The Woods, a park bench takes center stage in the impressive space of the Broadway Theatre Center’s Cabot Theatre. The bench in question is Swiss. It sits on the outskirts of Geneva, Switzerland in the mid-1980s. Scenic Designer R.H.Graham sculpts the ample space of the Cabot’s stage into a grand sylvan setting. The ground is very earthy and organic. The trees are stark vertical lines far in the background and there is a winding path leading off the stage on the left. It is here that two men meet, away from the conference, to hammer out a few agreements involving weapons that could wipe out most of the life on the face of the planet. Peter Reeves plays John Honeyman, an American. Robert Spencer plays the Soviet Andrey Botvinnik. Relying entirely on two actors playing two characters for an entire story can strain any feature-length play. Thankfully, Reeves and Spencer develop a rapport within Graham’s script that is interesting enough to swiftly carry four scenes with relatively few tiresome stretches. At the beginning of the first scene, we are seeing two people who have just met and begun working with each other. They’ve been hired by opposing employers and both want to work out an agreement. Honeyman is a young, lean and bureaucratic man who seems to want to meet success in negotiations for the sake of his own achievement as a professional negotiator. Botvinnik is an older gentleman who has been working away at brokering an arms agreement between the U.S. and the USSR for a number of years. He wants to get to know Honeyman as a human being. Much of the appeal of the play unfolds in the first scene as Botvinnik tries desperately to reach Henyman’s human side so that they can talk like normal human beings. Any appeal that the rest of the play holds resonates from that first scene. Spencer’s charisma here is much the same as it was in the Milwaukee Rep’s production of Tuesdays With Morrie some time ago. Spencer has a gift for portraying wise older man with diligent ethics and complex personalities. Reeves plays the straight man with such ferocity here that his suspicion of Botvinnik is palpable. With Spencer’s precise execution of Honeyman’s smart professionalism, it’s easy to side with his suspicions. Maybe Botvinnik’s efforts to reach a more friendly level of rapport with him are actually an attempt to control him. As the conversations play out, it is […]
Apr 23rd, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
Ears on a Beatle
John Lennon mastered the deceptively simple genius of finding his own voice and speaking with it. He spoke it deftly and frequently enough to have made quite a few people uncomfortable over the years and some of these people were in rather prominent positions in the U.S. government. As a result, Lennon was trailed by the FBI for a number of years. Agents were assigned. Reports were written. A stage comedy about this could be done a lot of different ways. With Ears On A Beatle, playwright Mark St. Germain delivers a competent script that mixes some clever bits of comedy with an overall natural sense of drama about two FBI agents assigned to trail John Lennon. Under the direction of frequent Rep actor Jonathan Smoots, Next Act Theater closes its season with an enjoyable production of the hit comedy. St. Germain chose for the play to follow the two FBI agents over an extended period of years. Next Act Producing Artistic Director David Cescarini plays Howard Ballentine, the older, more cynical agent who’s been on the job for a very long time. Ryan Schaubach plays younger, more idealistic FBI agent Daniel McClure, who goes undercover as a young hippie. This sets up a youth/experience theme that sees cynicism slowly change hands between generations as the ‘70s slowly fade-out into the ‘80s with the death of Lennon. The story is painted in fairly broad strokes, but that doesn’t make it any less compelling than a more intricate plot might have been. For the most part, we focus on the two agents and their lives and their interactions with each other. Other characters appear in the production as rendered in dialogue. J. Edgar Hoover is a silent character in the play, making his presence known subtly throughout the story. It was Hoover’s FBI that opened the file on Lennon in the first place. Dialogue ranges from very obvious jokes about the nature of work at the FBI to very, very subtle moments passing between two agents in idle conversation. Lennon himself is evident in so much of the dialogue, but nowhere is he more present than St. Germain’s depiction of the era of which he was a part. Cescarini brings his usual charisma to the role of Agent Ballentine. It’s a sympathetic portrayal of a public servant who just happens to be following around one of the most popular musicians of the 20th century. Cescarini has an impressive presence in any role and his performance here is no exception. His sympathetic portrayal of a practical conservative who comes to an understanding about the man he’s being paid to follow has a great deal of depth to it. Schaubach plays McClure as the nice guy who comes from a proud military family but gets shifted off to the FBI instead. He seems to believe in the idealism of his country, but understands that there’s a moral code that it doesn’t always live up to. His idealism outweighs his patriotism, leaving his personality […]
Apr 2nd, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
Unintended consequences
By Jon M. Gilbertson Sweden apparently values a well-rounded education for its children. That’s probably why Emil Svanängen – the man who releases modestly constructed, eminently beautiful albums under the curiously affectionate name of Loney, Dear – was playing clarinet when he was 8, then playing piano and fronting a jazz trio in his teens. Even after a few years of less directed musical pursuits, he got a bit of help from Jönköping, the town where he grew up. “I got a computer from my hometown,” Svanängen says. “They started to rent them out for the citizens, and that is how I got the opportunity to have one. I started recording with it and real cheap equipment and making record after record, and suddenly, I had a fourth record ready.” That record, Loney, Noir, initially came out in 2005, and in much the same manner that Loney, Dear records had always come out. Svanängen had played and recorded the entire album himself, largely in his apartment or in his parents’ basement. Then he transferred the stuff to CD-R’s, put together some cover art and sold the things. And he was fine with doing that. “I was quite happy, and I wanted the music to spread, but I wasn’t chasing anyone to release it,” he says. “It was living on its own as it was. The only pressure came from myself. I could sell albums the day I was finished and it wasn’t a problem. It was a good situation to check out how people could react to the music.” In one of those rare occurrences of pleasant serendipity, however, the good music of Loney, Dear went further than Svanängen had intended. It started getting attention in the Swedish press, and the British imprint Something In Construction released the third Loney, Dear album, Sologne, in 2006. And that March, Svanängen visited Austin, Texas to perform – with a full band, no less – at the South By Southwest music festival. “Our manager wanted us to go there, and that made a change for us,” he says. “He’s more interested in progress than I am. That is where things started happening.” Shortly thereafter, Svanängen got an e-mail from Tony Kiewel, the head of A&R at Sub Pop, the deservedly famous indie label that introduced Nirvana and Postal Service to the world. The label wanted to work with him, and he, in turn, was ambivalent toward the label. “I got a record deal in the mailbox and I didn’t sign it for five weeks because I was kind of afraid of it,” he says. “I think I was afraid of too much touring and tough jobs. They wondered what had happened to the deal.” He did sign, and so it was that Loney, Noir finally got its stateside release this February. It’s the sort of record that should do better on an indie than on a major: its songs deal in small-scale majesties, in slow build-ups to moments of exquisiteness and the magnificent […]
Apr 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
Not just another teen movie
By Evan Solochek + Photo By Kat Jacobs FADE IN: INT. PIUS XI HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM SPRING 2006 A thin, dark-haired man in his early 30s stands before a classroom of disinterested high school kids. His name is Dominic Inouye and he is an English teacher. Normally he teaches AP English Literature but on this particular day he has taken over a colleague’s freshman English class with the task of helping them finish their short stories. Despite his best efforts, Dominic receives only tepid responses. DOMINIC (V.O.) “Most of them were not terribly invested in what they were writing. They were, once again, writing for their teacher and the tiny group of classmates, who cared even less about reading something their peers wrote.” Frustrated, Dominic ponders alternatives. Then comes a breakthrough: the video camera. Dominic jumps from his desk and haphazardly passes out the students’ stories. After every student has read through everyone’s stories, he has the students vote for the two they think would make the best movie: a love story about an arachnophobic butcher and one about a haunted house. MONTAGE OF STUDENTS WORKING DOMINIC (V.O.) “I set them to translating the stories into storyboards, forcing them to create visual and auditory detail that just wasn’t present yet in the original stories. That done, we spent three days filming.” FADE OUT While this may read as trite Hollywood melodrama at its worst, some alternate beginning to Dangerous Minds or Freedom Writers perhaps, it’s not. This is the story of the Milwaukee Spotlight Student Film Festival. A cooperative effort between Dominic Inouye and James Carlson, Executive Director of Bucketworks and founder of the School Factory, the MSSFF, now in its third year, remains the only event in Milwaukee dedicated solely to supporting high school filmmakers. “We want to see young filmmakers grow up in our state, or come from other states to learn here, and share skills with others,” Inouye says. “We want to see educators embrace video as an authentic, powerful assessment tool and allow children of all ages the chance to see, record and transform their worlds in new ways.” For many students, the MSSFF is their first opportunity to exhibit a film publicly, a chance many filmmakers don’t get until much later in life, if ever. And that is precisely what makes the MSSFF such a fertile proving ground for its participants. “The festival gave me an experience of what it may be like working in the real world of film,” says Kaleigh Atkinson, who won Best Live Performance or Event in 2006 for her film Battle of the Bands ‘05: The Twitch Kids and who is currently studying film at UWM. “It encouraged us to find the true artist within, to branch out and put our visions to work.” For Inouye, however, the MSSFF is about much more than just making movies; it’s about breaking down what he sees as entrenched educational barriers and, ultimately, enriching kids. “Teaching tends to be very ghettoized,” says Inouye. […]
Apr 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
April 2007
April 3rd The Academy Is… Santi Fueled By Ramen Boys Like Girls Boys Like Girls Red Ink/Columbia Brandi Carlile The Story Columbia Chevelle Vena Sera Epic Jarvis Cocker Jarvis Rough Trade/World’s Fair Fountains of Wayne Traffic and Weather Virgin Kings of Leon Because of the Times RCA Los Straitjackets Rock en Espanol, Vo. 1 Yep Roc Maxïmo Park Our Earthly Pleasures Warp Andy Partridge Monstrance Ape House/Ryko Static-X Cannibal Reprise Timbaland Timbaland Presents Shock Value Paul Wall Get Money – Stay True Atlantic The Waterboys Boy of Lightning U.K. – Universal April 10th Army of Me Citizen Doghouse Blonde Redhead 23 4AD Bright Eyes Cassadaga Saddle Creek Coco Rosie The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn Touch & Go From Autumn to Ashes Holding a Wolf By the Ears Vagrant Grinderman Grinderman Anti-/Epitaph Guster Satellite EP Reprise Nekromantrix Life is a Grave & I Dig It! Hellcat/Epitaph The Terrible Twos If You Ever See an Owl Poquito/Vagrant April 17th The Comas Spells Vagrant Avril Lavigne The Best Damn Thing RCA Page McConnell Page McConnell Legacy Nine Inch Nails Year Zero Nothing/Interscope The Old Soul The Old Soul Friendly Fire Priestbird In Your Time Kemado April 24th Arctic Monkeys Favourite Worst Nightmare Domino Bill Callahan Woke on a Whaleheart Drag City/Caroline Cowboy Junkies At the End of Paths Taken Zoe/Rounder The Electric Soft Parade No Need to be Downhearted Better Looking Gus Gus Forever Groove Atack Kalli While the City Sleeps One Little Indian Mando Diao Ode to Ochrasy Mute Midnight Movies Lion the Girl New Line Patti Smith Twelve Columbia The Veils Nux Vomica Rough Trade/World’s Fair
Apr 1st, 2007 by Erin Wolf
April 2007
Thoughts on “Low Numbers” Your “Strength In Low Numbers” [Covered, March 2007] piece was a good read, one of the more comprehensive looks at WYMS that has appeared in the local press. I started working there in late 1981, and saw my 21-year career end rather unceremoniously in April, 2004. In between I hosted talk shows and jazz programs, provided commentary for Spelling Bee broadcasts, built an absolutely one-of-a-kind jazz library from scratch, suffered through agonizing fundraisers (or Begathons, as the staff referred to them privately), watched on-air technology change from turntables to CDs, endured countless summer weekends when the heat and humidity in the studios was so bad the equipment would sweat (they turned the AC off on Friday afternoons…), and took out the trash when necessary. I also had the privilege of serving a unique audience that was fanatically devoted to jazz, and that made it all worth while. But the 88.9 radio torch has been passed, and time will tell if RFM’s grand experiment succeeds or fails. Thanks to your article, I now know more about what that experiment entails than I ever did before. Thank you for writing it. Bill Bruckner Former WYMS Music Director In your latest issue, your “Left of the Dial in Milwaukee” states MPS could no longer afford to support the station. What is little known is that when WYMS went to pre-programmed JAZZ, all donations dried up, and MPS ended having to budget almost twice as much to run the station! (I know as I saw the budget). Spence Kortze or whatever his name can stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. Dan in Milwaukee Ed. Note: I actually stated that “MPS announced that it could no longer afford…,” which is different from me stating it as fact. In a shorter piece it’s hard to go into depth on every point, but I saw the same budget and – Wow! What a mystifying choice the Board made… Jon Anne … More “thoughts” from our online readers: Even after reading the above story of the evolution of your new format on WYMS, I still say, “Bring back our jazz, man.” —Marilyn Holbus You need to consider not throwing out the baby (JAZZ) as you continue to format and develop your programming. I hope there is still someone out there protecting this vital part of distinctly American, music culture.—Paul Carlson The new music is a big mish mash of too many types of music. Milwaukee is a very provincial town with peoples’ tastes pretty well set. The jazz format worked. It is the only music that is truly indigenous to America. Bring it back and dump the musical smorgasbord that can not appeal to anyone. Thanks—Chuck Sable I was skeptical at first, and for the first few weeks it was clear the station was searching for its “special something,” but I think it’s got it now. It works, surprisingly well. This is a station for people who just love music plain and simple: […]
Apr 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
The Arcade Fire
“World War Three, when are you comin’ for me?” Win Butler of the Arcade Fire poses the question in Neon Bible, which is saturated with natural disasters, social unrest, fundamentalist discontent and the toxic emissions from celebrity culture. Arcade Fire opens its mouth to the world, attempts to swallow it, digest, then spit it back out for our benefit. Fortunately, they pull off the huge feat of addressing cultural and global issues without needing to be punk and without sounding anthematically ridiculous. Stadium act they still are not. Rather, the band has worked on crescendo-ing their status and sound not by venue, but by orchestrating the music into sweeping, gothic proportions which, given their choice of instruments – a pipe organ, accordion, hurdy gurdy and the addition of a military choir and a Hungarian orchestra – seems perfectly appropriate. With a grandiosity that exceeds the debut, Funeral, Neon Bible sweeps in with the sinister staccato rumblings of a piano akin to a cold front before a summer storm, thundering alongside windy string arrangements. Tracks dodge between orchestra pit pop and rock epics, finding gospel-influenced ballads tagged with southwestern brass along the way. As Neon Bible reflects on the situation of “us versus the world,” it comes dangerously close to compacting too much doom and gloom into an album that was definitely meant to deliver a blow, not a nudge; after awhile, the same bruise gets punched. The only respite from the global explosion of chaos is the closing track, “No Cars Go” (re-recorded from a previous EP). The Arcade Fire may have favored ending high and hopeful with a message more about running to freedom than running from global assault.
Apr 1st, 2007 by Erin Wolf
