Another Form of Relief

Does this even count as a Christmas song? I’d suspect not given that it’s not actual about Christmas outside of that title. The whole song is about growing up after university and how utterly miserable and lonely that experience can be. Which of course makes for just the right tone for a festive song.

That said, even if it doesn’t quite meet the criteria, it certainly has the right feel. This is as close as you can get I think to a song itself actually feeling cold. There’s a slight sleigh-bell sound milling about in there too. If you’re someone, like me, who absolutely detests this time of year, it’s just about the perfect song for this time of year.

Now if I can just turn this around on you people for a moment, is Casiotone any good live? He’s playing a few UK dates later in the month including one in London. I’ve put off getting tickets as there are still a ton left and he seems like he might not lend himself well to a live environment. Any experiences?

I know that I write about Los Campesinos! a lot. So I apologise if you don’t really like them. In my defence, I haven’t had much of a chance to write about their latest album. Once I do though, we can all move on for a while. At least until they put something new out anyway. Which at their current rate will probably be next week.

We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed seemed to be an apt title for a second album following less than a year after their debut. It seemed unlikely that much would be as enjoyable as Hold On Now, Youngster…, and let’s face it, the band always had the feel of having one superb in them before disappearing again.

Despite everything against it though, somehow WABWAD (the best acronym ever) manages to be a superior work, demonstrating far more range. Walls of sound are introduced, abstract instrumentals and Casiotone inspired short, sharp shocks rumble through the record. Thirty minutes later, we’ve covered more musical ground than a lot of bands would in a decade.

That isn’t to the say the pop songs that symbolised the original album are gone. They’ve just evolved. The title track offers exactly what the it promises. Racing through lines about breaking people’s teeth, decaying organs and stale relationships with such exuberance you can’t help but wonder if the master track got mixed up somewhere down the line. It doesn’t matter though. By the time Gareth spits out his ultimate condemnation of society with “we kid ourselves there’s future in the fucking, but there is no fucking future”, you just want to shout it out and roll your eyes in unison.

We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed was released back in October. Even though only 5,000 copies have been put out, with no more to follow, it still seems to be available. What the hell is wrong with you people?

There comes a time when one wonders about just how appropriate a band name is. Owen Ashworth’s Casiotone for the Painfully Alone project seems to have exceeded it’s original remit. Certainly the casiotone part has been redundant for a while, as new instrumentation was experimented with. Now though, even the painfully alone seems rather outdated. Settling down and raising a family isn’t the alien concept that it once was.

That covers what we don’t have. What are we left with? Elaborate tales of a bank robber going for “one last score” before he settles down. I say elaborate, but it’s really all quite simple. The elaborate is how well it’s illustrated. Less than two minutes long, and yet you still have time to understand, even sympathise, with these characters. Little details, from the car stuffed with bottles and stubbed out cigarettes, to the getaway route of “all right turns” so “the lights won’t get us caught” give colour to an otherwise familiar world.

Musically, it’s more accomplished than anything Ashworth has done previously. It’s not a great change from 2006’s Etiquette, but there are flurries that hint of greater abilities here. It’s just a shame that the second I reach the When The Saints Go Marching In sample, the only thing I can picture is Homer Simpson butchering it.

Vs. Children will be released via Tomlab on April 7. In the US at least. God knows about anywhere else.

A band without any pictures at all. Not the greatest of starts when you want to blog about them.

That said, it’s hard not to take notice when you get an email claiming “equal love for Times New Viking, The Unicorns, Los Campesinos! and Casiotone For the Painfully Alone.” Seeing as I love three and a half of those, I’m inclined to have a listen.

This is the kind of music that makes the likes of Casiotone sound overproduced, which is no mean feat. Everything is incredibly rudimentary, and covered in distortion, yet it’s ultimately adorable for the two minutes that it lasts. Despite the limitations, boy-girl vocals, handclaps and glockenspiels all manage to put in an appearance, giving us a sense of what Los Campesinos! perhaps would have sounded like with only two people.

The ethos of the band seems to be built around the idea of making music in the now rather than thinking it over too much. The band’s first gig will is coming up in a couple of months. Hopefully they won’t rehearse too much.

Internet Forever will play their first gig on December 11 at the The Lexington in Angel. Which is in London.

An opening that sounds like Imagine.
Drawled vocals.
Pointless nostalgia.
Introspection.
How things could be better.
Stuck in the rut.
Dead end job.
Deadbeat friends.
Dead end life.
Misery.