Some albums hit you right between the ears on first listen and become instant favourites, whereas some creep up on you slowly and you become hooked over time. I always find the latter scenario more rewarding.
AMC's brilliant last album 'Love Songs For Patriots' was immediate and unusually (for them) upbeat. Songs like the anthemic 'Home' and the sprawling epic 'Patriot's Heart' became instant AMC classics and the album remains one of my all time favourites. The first couple of times I listened to 'The Golden Age', which was recorded with an almost entirely new band - only Mark and Vudi remain, I felt slightly disappointed. It sounded nice enough but there were no really catchy numbers and nothing immediately stuck.
It is only after playing the album for a week or so that I have come to understand what a wonderful record this is.
Without a doubt it is a change in style. The music is generally softer and so are Eitzel's vocals, rarely does he even raise his voice. There is less anger than on 'Love Songs For Patriots' and the songs are more reflective. Opener 'All My Love' is very pretty indeed, with lots of gentle acoustic guitar touches and whispered vocals. The third track 'Decibels and the Little Pills' is where things really take off. A witty lyric about rock n roll excess and a beautiful melody with feedback at the end that reminds me of Wilco circa Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
'Sleeping Beauty' which follows raises the bar even higher. Originally recorded for Eitzel's 'Candy Ass' album, it is rightly reworked here to give it the larger audience it deserves. It is a autumnal love song with incredibly vivid imagery
"As I drove away
Over the dead leaves....
in the mirror I saw you wave....
I thought oh well, this could be the last time I see
your beautiful hands
your frozen hands"
To my ears it is one of Eitzel's greatest ever songs, on a par with 'Firefly' and 'Western Sky'. 'Beautiful' is an overused word in this badly written blog but it is a seriously beautiful song and I can't stop listening to it at the moment.
Elsewhere, other highlights include the upbeat, jaunty 'All The Lost Souls Welcome You to San Francisco' and 'The Dance' a strange song which appears to tell a girl meets boy story with the quirk being the fact that the boy is a cop who has just been given his first gun. That's how it sounds to me anyway, it is an affecting and empathetic tale with another nice melody. Along with 'Sleeping Beauty' the other major standout track is 'The Windows of the World', a spoken word (well he kind of half sings and half speaks) about meeting a friend in New York- it may well touch on 9/11 too. Its an interesting song and the Wilco-style feedback ending makes a welcome return.
There is so much to discover in this album that I just can't stop playing it at the moment. It reveals itself to you slowly and you gradually find yourself hooked. I can't really compare it to any other AMC album, I suppose the most similar is 'California' but really this one has a sound all of it's own.
It is early days but this might just be my favourite AMC album yet. Can't wait to hear these songs played live in February.
9.6
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