It may only seem an oddity or wholly frivolous happenstance to only me, but the revival and appreciation of “pop” sensibilities in the world of independent music is running rampant. While I would not venture to lambaste artists who are capable of outputting catchy hooks over the verse-chorus-verse format, it is an aesthetic that, for me, leaves a lot to be desired in way of praising an album.
And thus is Aqueduct’s Or Give Me Death: A release that has all the qualities of appeal, but falls far short of being notable or unique in its’ ability to warrant repeated listens. Aqueduct is the one-man, piano, electronics, drum machine, laden effort of David Terry and is toted as “bedroom rock” on his website. Perhaps the whole appeal of Or Give Me Death is the charming, lo-fi, personal draw, which results from Terry’s “man-alone-with-a-band’s-worth-of-instruments” songs. Tracks like “Lying In The Bed I’ve Made,” and “Split The Difference” are exercises in tightly woven pop songwriting, layering standard bouncy piano melodies over mostly-textural synthesizer sounds, and backed by capable drumming.
Where Or Give Me Death comes horribly empty is in Terry’s punchy vocal delivery (somewhere well off the Rob Crowe-beaten path) and childish lyrics—a combination that has over-saturated music of late. Lyrics like “Goodnight, sleep well/I’ll probably kill you in the morning,” and “ A Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup is what I’m waiting for” on “As You Wish,” or “This is a message for all the lovers/Or anyone who is playing Spyhunter” on “Zero The Controls” leaves you wishing were 14 so you could breath some adolescent-ridden sense of urgency into what Terry is saying. By the time the chorus of “With Friends Like These” kicks in with the words, “You are a bad, bad actor/I’ve got a part that you would be just perfect in/You play the one who dumps on everyone/Who hurts the ones who really care,” you really just want Aqueduct’s lyric sheet to have stayed in the journal it was torn from.
Or Give Me Death is an album meant to be taken at face value, just as Aqueduct is as a musical project. The nature of David Terry’s songwriting and lyrical content is one that is not meant to be over-thought, and or really be expounded on. Simply put it’s music that is meant to be accessible and overly listenable to a broad and undiscerning audience. And in that regards Aqueduct is, I wildly suppose, quite successful. |