Speak Kindly Of Your Volunteer Fire Department
(1999, Fading Captain Series)
SIDE
A:
Frequent
Weaver Who Burns-
4
Light, British-tinged pop. Acoustic driven, and cheery.
Melodies flow like a saccharine river. Just don’t listen to
the lyrics. Pretty ridiculous there.
Soul
Train College Policeman-
3
Moody
and deserted sounding. Sparse, minor-chords fiddled with over
buried drum bursts.
Pop
Zeus-
5
Irresistibly good lead guitar lines that completely make the
song. Driving, pogo-pop. Hell of a collaboration. Get on
your fucking roof and yell this at the postman or neighborhood
dog walker, because it’s that good.
Slick
as Snails-
2
Long,
run-of-the-mill, small stadium rock snoozer. Almost epic, but can’t
seem to get out of its mid-fi way. Always boarders on having a
good hook, but always seems to fall short.
Do
Something Real-
2
Post-punk
tinged pop with starts and stops, and awkward, fairly annoying
chorus. Crunchy, industrial sounding. File under forgettable.
Port
Authority-
2
Layered guitars and vocals make up this weird, over-long track.
Poor guitar effects that meander on too long while tumbling drums
bang away in unison.
Soft
Smoke-
2
Acoustic
chord strums while Pollard talk-sings some crazy avant-garbage.
Under a minute of forgettable poetry. Spills into the even more
surreal…
Same
Things-
3
Space, prog vocals echo into the recesses of your brain over
creepily plucked, darkened acoustic patterns. Moody and effective.
SIDE
B:
And
I Don’t (So Now I Do)-
4
Mid-tempo,
acoustic driven GBV
sounding song. Sounds like it could have been amped up enough for
Isolation
Drills.
Decent, lone sung melody in the chorus. Vintage radio-pop
“ohhhs and ahhhs” included at no extra charge.
Tight
Globes-
4
Unmemorable
guitar palm-muting, with Pete Townsend grand strums, and rolling
drums. Eventually breaks into full-on late era GBV
style jamming. Pollard pens a great vocal melody over this
fairly forgettable music giving the song some pop-credibility.
I
Get Rid of You-
1
Tremolo shellacked guitars and heroin-rock, guitar noodling. Dark and dripping bad dream in the land of Prog.
Life
is Beautiful-
2
Open room vocal sound is amazing! However, this song is not.
Verses seem to show promise, but the rest of the song is
Pollard singing along to every weird guitar rhythm that’s hit. The
sullen, airy “Life is Beautiful” part is pretty but also kind of
unnervingly sappy.
Messiahs-
2
The lead line is so silly that it’s pretty awesome. Sounds
like a warped kids toy. But beyond that, the song is dismissible. Not
much in the way of melody, song goes nowhere, and it sounds unmixed.
Larger
Massachusetts-
3
Electric
guitar with Pollard vocals. Folky, pop complete with small melodic
vocals lines and decent lyrics to make it fairly effective.
And
My Unit Moves- 3 Piano pounds away as Pollard deeply croons. Seems like
they ran out of other instruments to carry the last two tracks of
this thing. Mildly catchy, mildly depressing closer.
strange, i totally disagree with you on this one, i get rid of you is one of the best songs, and pop zeus one of the worst.... nevermind, great blog ;)
ReplyDelete"And I will not pretend to be
Deleteextending a hand that holds the key
unlocking a plan that can consider you"
I too love I Get Rid of You... I also love Pop Zeus.
Also I really love Slick as Snails! It took me a while to even pay attention to it, but, man, I love how it comes across as kind of straight forward but then the melodies start sliding around. What's the chorus? What's the verse? Structurally it's so unusual. (I'm no musician, though)
Sorry. Just had to jump on and rep for those songs. Great work!
Over the years, I've been reading fan reactions to this LP in particular that make me continue to want to listen with fresh ears. I go back from time to time, but still stand with most of my reviews on this one, although, I could elaborate more on songs, or might describe them differently today. I'll say, I'm not nuts about "I Get Rid of You" but perhaps it does not deserve a 1. I'm willing to say it's worthy, even bumping it up to a lower 3 nowadays. Maybe one day I'll wake up to this record with a clearer head. Thanks Dustin for the input!
DeleteI wouldn't say you need to reconsider any of it or change a thing. It's one of the things I enjoy about being a fan of Pollard. You can meet other fans who are into totally different songs and albums than you. There's so much there that you can form a personal relationship with it.
DeleteI've had friends that I've desperately tried to get into GBV who just weren't having it. I'm not friends with them any more but my point is, I'm happy to know anyone who COULD shout Pop Zeus from a rooftop. Whether or not they like "I Get Rid of You" won't matter at all when we're on that rooftop.
Love Pop Zeus, the rest of the album is interesting, but nothing really leaps out at me. I think Mist King Urth and Waving at the Astronauts are better albums.
ReplyDeletePop Zeus is genius. Slick As Snails is genius. And I Don't (So Now I Do) and Frequent Weaver Who Burns are wonderful. Do Something Real and Tight Globes are up there too. This is Pollard's best solo(ish) album. The two Lifeguards releases are crushing disappointments in comparison.
ReplyDeleteJules
Totally agree with you on Lifegaurds' LPs, Jules. Some folks love them. I don't see it.
DeleteSlick as Snails is the best song on here
ReplyDeleteI'll say Slick as Snails 5
ReplyDeleteI get Rid of You 4
I don't So Now I do 5
Pop Zeus 4
Tight Globes 2
Life is beautiful deserves higher than 2! Maybe 6. For me, it is a well-accomplished little ditty (as they say), allegorical in the sense that the chord sequence represents our recurrent and familiar gloomy vision, but then some simple, playful, and ridiculous realization springs into our path totally devoid of solemnity to remind us that...Life is beautiful, that insulting universal truth and cycle.
ReplyDeleteI have admittedly come around to this LP MUCH more over the years. I've toyed with rewritting a revision of this one in particular. Some hold this in their top 5 Pollard, but I'm not quit there. However, I totally missed the majority of good in this record when I got in 2004 up to writing this site in 2014.
Delete