An initial headline rang in my head when I heard this album the first time: Progressive Band Progresses. As an avid follower of 31 Knots, this album surprised the hell out of me. Their Jawbox by way of prog-rock sound features a simple understated fact surrounding it: it's undeniably good. In the tradition of understatedly good (and somewhat progressive) bands like Bluetip, Burning Airlines, Faraquet, Smart Went Crazy, and Shiner, 31 Knots takes the linguistics, the hooks, the overeager vocals and the largeness of it all one more step. It is for this reason that I am in love with them.
So too, will I take this too far. You see, the other reviewers of the world seem to take grandiose as some sort of insult. A band like 31 Knots takes chances, so they are dismissed as a 6 or 7 type of rating with tag lines like "borderline" or "tolerable for now." To hell with all that. I will proceed to try and describe Talk Like Blood with the bravado it deserves. The pitchforks of the world be damned; this album is fantastic—damn near perfect for its audacity.
First, however, I will tell you: the songs are fantastic individually. The gusto behind lyrics like opener "City of Dust": "I am the city of dust/ I am the cold dark place/ I am the half dead flesh that needs no sleep/ the pregnant pause… So, will you be mine?" Unbelievable. Not since J Robbins described a "Carnival" has the listener been able to feast upon the entrails of thought that surround the male mind. Important, though vague, these lyrics tear at what want means. Talk like blood is an indication of everything this band and the human condition surmises: we want the bravado of the world to revolve around us—we want. In the end, this is what defines the rest of the album. Songs like "Hearsay" use faraway vocals to describe repetition of life's wants: "No more maybe/I'm numb baby/ No more hanging pressure in the air so calm." Then the anger of "Thousand Wars": "Hell hath no fury like me… So bring me heaven in full force/ light up sky like a thousand wars." The most prolific soothsayer of songs comes later in "Chain Reaction." The meat of the song is confrontation, but the ultimate ending is vanity and ultimately forceful understanding: "I could've called his bluff/ or fucked him up. But strange are the days of our twisted fate. Hurting him was like hurting me." The dramatic becomes mundane: "It was a chain reaction/ that I had broken/ but not abandoned." The grandiose is an understood corollary for the driving guitars, the rambling hooks, the effects, the looped instrumentation, and the brave and dramatic lyrics. Everything is as it should be, but nothing is accepted at face values. Not even the memoirs of "Chain Reaction" or "Void Employs a Kiss" are treated without reverence for the prescient present. All is to be learned. All is want, and all is wanted.
So, I proceed. This album is the woman I always wanted: stylish, but not obsessive, systematically insane, but emphatic, scattered but together when necessary, beautiful and beatific; an exemplary notice of how humanity will shun the dramatics of the world and romanticize the little things. This album is woman willing to sit in a music store while I sift through worthless vinyl. She is willing to put up with obsessive-compulsive behavior and ridiculously overwrought Christian right wing parents that affect my understanding of the world at large. Talk Like Blood is a top-heavy, slick talking, smart, well-read woman with charisma and beauty waiting to be noticed.
Over the top? Sure. I just don't care. This type of album only comes along every so often: loud, angry, quiet, manic, believable, progressive, simple, complex, present tense. It's all there. All you have to do is talk to it. I'll bet it'll talk back. I'll bet it's not taken, and it has been looking for you all along. I'll bet J Robbins, Blake Schwartzenbach, all of Faraquet AND Jason Farrell on it. Seriously. Embrace your inner bravado. After all, "Company loves agony…Labor is a lover never clever or conceded/ never preaching or pretending to be anything but busy/ and busy is bold." Busy is bold, indeed. Perhaps another headline would better suffice: People Come to Senses, Realize Taking Chances to be Good Idea. |