The Mountain Goats - The Life of the World to Come

      I was introduced to The Mountain Goats via a mix CD my brother Jeremy gave me. He had made the CD in Cegep and it contained all of the songs by The Mountain Goats that he had downloaded at the time. For years it was the only music I had by them. When I got it I fell in love with them for a time, but like with most bands, I moved on to others, keeping that burnt CD in one of my many cases, rarely bringing it out for a listen. I hadn't thought about The Mountain Goats for awhile and then over a month ago my girlfriend's father bought me their new album, The Life of the World to Come, as a Christmas present. The first time I listened to this album was in the car with my girlfriend and a few of her friends going to and from a bar. A few of the songs struck me as a massive departure from The Mountain Goats I used to know. Other songs were hard to hear over the chatter in the car, which gave me hope that upon further listening I'd hear the same type of subdued and beautiful acoustic songs I was accustomed to hearing from them.

      I was partially correct. There's lots of acoustic guitar on this album but it acts as a backbone to the lush instrumentation that the band's only constant member, John Darnielle, has incorporated into their sound. These new songs have beautiful string arrangements, pounding and eerie drum accompaniments and where, in the old songs, you would've found just John singing over an acoustic guitar, he has switched it for a piano. The most effective instrument used by Darnielle is his voice. He practically whispers over the quieter songs on the album and the ragers show us a loud and empassioned man with a message.

      My favorite thing about The Mountain Goats has always been John's beautiful lyrics. He is a wonderful storyteller and that striking talent is all over this album. All of the songs on this album are named after bible verses and like most bible stories, some of these songs are about people undertaking trials and tribulations, all the while trying to maintain faith and moral purity. Others are about people searching for a new beginning and praying for the strength to find it. The songs that are strongest lyrically are character pieces told in the first person. Each of them are like prayers coming from the souls of these imaginary people. John's ability to make these people sound real and their prayer for redemption sound sincere comes to a climax in the final track, “ Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace.” This song tells the story of a drug addict on the run after commiting a kidnapping. There is no redemption in these lyrics, which is fitting as the bible verse it is named after contains none either. It is a song about an irredeemable sinner running from what he has done. He can't escape the dark clouds above him and when he pulls the car over to do some unnamed drug, it only brings him higher and closer to them.

      This album shows The Mountain Goats doing what they do best, telling stories about realistic people (some good, some bad and some doing the best they can) accompanied by equally beautiful music, the density of which perfectly matches the lyrical depth of the songs. I have fallen in love with this band once again and hope I don't neglect them as long as I did last time.

My Chemical Romance- Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys

       “Look alive, sunshine.” Revolutionary words coming from a band whose lead singer, Gerard Way, made a name for himself with dark eyeliner and a pale, white face. Danger Days is a sonic revolution for My Chemical Romance and the lyrics really bring that idea home. Lyrically, these songs are filled with guns, bullets, bombs, explosions, the urge to flee and calls to action (and partying) despite certain death. Gerard Way's passionate vocals have been a staple of the band's sound since the beginning and Danger Days is no exception. On this new album, however, the passion no longer seems to come from a nihilistic and angst-ridden place. Gerard sounds ecstatic to be fighting “The Man,” blowing things up and, in the album's more tender moments, keeping a beautiful and unnamed love safe and sound.

        The band insists that Danger Days is not a concept album. Considering this, the addition of Dr. Death Defying's radio interludes remind me of skits that were popular in rap albums in the early 2000s. They don't tell a story; rather, they set the scene for the universe and mindset that the songs are coming from. In the case of Danger Days, that universe and mindset seem to be a party at the end of the world and Dr. Death Defying is providing the soundtrack.

        “This ain't about all the friends you made/But the graffiti they write on your grave.” Any successful revolution is a group effort and nowhere is this better shown than in the album's instrumentals. There are scorching guitar solos, fast-paced, pounding drum beats and stripped down rhythm guitars. The slower, and arguably cheesier, songs on the album have dense overdubs and beautiful effects on basically all the instruments (including the vocals on psychedelic pop song “S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W" ). Like on MCR's other albums, and in most popular rock music, the bass guitar is kept relatively low in the mix, acting as extra meat on the rhythm guitar's backbone. On their previous record, The Black Parade, keyboards played a subtle yet important role in the instrumentation and the band has carried that motif over to this record. The keyboards are for the most part felt rather than heard, giving the songs an airy and futuristic feel. Notable exceptions to this are the album's second single, “SING” (the sparse piano notes giving the song an unnerving sense of urgency) and “Planetary(GO!),” where the opening siren-synths act as a warning that the subdued New-Wave song you're listening to will inevitably explode into the album's grooviest party song.

        Overall, Danger Days shows a band that has spent a long time focusing on the negative aspects of the human condition, having a great time despite the obstacles. The album leaves the listener excited to see what these musical chameleons are going to come up with next. The band has described this album as a high speed chase through the desert in a Trans AM. Whether the next album is going to crash and explode or get away safely, I'm excited to see. I only have one piece of advice for My Chemical Romance: make sure you floor it again next time.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Hello again! When I started this blog I had thought that posting twice a week was a reasonable goal that I could easily achieve. Working this week to get one review done I realized how wrong I was! So for now my plan is to write and post one review a week and Mondays is the deadline I've given myself. I hope you enjoy reading this review as much as I enjoyed writing it. I appreciate any constructive criticism or questions you have about what I write so please be don't be shy to contact me! So here it is, my review of the Russian classic, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

   There is little to nothing I can say about Leo Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina' that hasn't been said over the past hundred plus years since it was published. When I finished the book and decided it would be the first one I write about I was instantly stumped. Searching for inspiration, I read the introduction (which I never do for fiction books because they tend to have spoilers) and had a breakthrough. In the preface to the novel, John Bayley writes, “All the characters in Anna Karenina are intensely real.” For me, that was the most riveting and satisfying part of reading this book. I'm not a Russian aristocrat in 1800s Russia but I still felt like I knew these characters and even saw some people I know in a few characters. I am friends with women as beautiful as Anna Karenina and Kitty, who men easily lose themselves in and fight over. I have felt Levin's devotion to a pursuit for love and his disappointment when that person has feelings for someone else.

   The most intense parallel I experienced between a character in the book and a person in my own life was between my eldest brother Chris and the character Levin, after his marriage to Kitty and the birth of their child. In the novel we're introduced to Levin as a socially concious land-owner who despises politics and is particularly passionate about reforming the current system of farming in Russia. In Part 5 of the novel he gets married and focuses his time and energy on providing for his family. Eventually he becomes preoccupied with financial worries and societal obligations. This is a major concern for all of the novel's main characters and is one of the novel's prominent themes. Levin eventually feels a void in his life and on the verge of suicide begins asking himself questions about the meaning of life. After much reflection Levin finds purpose and happiness in Christianity which he had been surrounded by his whole life but shrugged off in favour of intellectual and philosophical pursuits.

   Minus the desperation and suicidal thoughts, this is almost the same thing that happened to Chris. He got married, bought a small business and then he and his wife had a child. Around this time Chris became concerned with the issue of morality and how to raise his son to be a good and happy human being. Like Levin, my brother and I were raised by Christian parents and in a predominantly Christian community. Taking a more in-depth look at the bible and Christian values seemed like the logical next step for Chris. He has since decided to begin the process of becoming a minister in the Presbyterian church (a more drastic reaction than Levin,of course, but the circumstances leading to this decision is what contains the imporant similarities).

   In the words of Richard Pevear, co-translator and author of the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition I read, “Anna Karenina introduces us to the most ordinary Russian aristocrats of the 1870s, concerned with the most ordinary issues of the day, behaving in the most ordinary ways, experiencing the most ordinary joys and sorrows.” I think that's what makes this novel so relatable to the life of anyone reading it and is definitely what I loved most about it.

Why I'm Here.

Hey there. My name is Brian Charles Clarke. I'm 22 years old and live with my parents in Pointe-Claire, Quebec,Canada. I work at a bookstore my eldest brother owns in downtown Montreal called Argo Bookshop. It's a new year and I have resolved to increase my creative output. I've been passionate about music for as long as I can remember and over the past year that I've worked at Argo I have become passionate about reading. So that's what this blog is going to be filled with, reviews and essays about music and books.
  Like most music nerds I listen to a little bit of everything. Less generally, I have a soft spot for punk rock and other loud and heavy genres.As of late,my favourite band is the Florida based punk band "Against Me!". Over the past few years I have developed a love for rap music and I'm still in the process of immersing myself in the culture. I also listen to pop music(because who doesn't need to music to smile and dance to sometimes?) so you may end up reading my thoughts on big names and albums; but none of these are "guilty pleasures". In my opinion, good music is good music whether or not the musician takes themselves seriously or considers their work "art".
    As for reading, I'm still in the process of figuring out what I like and what I don't. Over the past year I read a lot of classic literature, along with more contemporary titles to make sure I had a nice mix of the old and the new. This year I hope to read more contemporary writers, if only so I can fall in love with writers who I can expect new work from. Out of what I've read so far my favorite author is Franz Kafka and I also really enjoy Jack Kerouac(and plan to read more from the beat generation writers this year). I mostly read fiction but I do read some non-fiction. Mostly books about music and this year I started looking into philosophy and plan to continue you doing so. This year was my first that I kept track of all the booksI read and if you're interested in getting a better idea of what I've read here is that list:

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Death of Ivan Ilyich/The Cossacks/Happily Ever After by Leo Tolstoy

Dog Boy by Eva Hornung

Black Boy by Richard Wright

Can't Stop Won't Stop by Jeff Chang

Shuck by Daniel Allen Cox

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

Without Feathers by Woody Allen

Molloy by Samuel Beckett

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

On The Road by Jack Kerouac

Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

The Book of Human Skin by Michelle Lovric

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Lockpick Pornography by Joey Comeau

The Republic by Plato

For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Confessions by Saint Augustine

The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays by Albert Camus.

That's all for now, I hope you stick around and enjoy reading my reviews!