Frames - Burn the Maps
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Free Music Notes for Burn the Maps
Free Music Review: The Frames Are The Best
Hit: 5 Stars
I have not been so excited about a group since 1971. And never have listened to a CD more times than I've listened to The Frames' Fitzcarraldo.....but then I got that before Burn The Maps.
There's not a moment of instrumental superflash a la Hendrix, rarely a lyric that astonishes a la Dylan........but no one on the planet sings with more heart than Glen Hansard.....many songs are like an entire play with soft, lulling passages opening into scenes of stormy yelling drama......
And there's a tightness to this group, whose absolute center is Hansard.......and which has been going in various incarnations since a uniqueness (I loosely think of it as Irish alt-rock-folk)
to the sound, the tone, the lyric........the blend of it all.........
I guess the one proviso is that you have to like moody and romantic and rock and lyrical all together. I can't stand overly sentimental stuff, so
the fact that The Frames can put so much emotion, longing, sorrow, anger, memory into a song without ever being cloying is miraculous.
I have never seen a better concert than The Frames in Portland, Oregon in 2005.........and of perhaps 10,000 CDs I've listened to in my place Fitzcarraldo and Burn The Maps in the top 1%.........listen to Burn The Maps without expecting anything in be ready to go somewhere both strange yet wonderfully familiar
With most groups, I know where I stand on their music within a few notes of each song, certainly by the time I get thru a CD. The Frames start out with me thinking they're really good, and by the third time thru.......I am sent back decades to the excitement (though quite a different style of music) of being a teen-age fan listening to the Kinks, or Dylan, or Cream.
Free Music Review: simply beautiful
Hit: 5 Stars
The thing about The Frames is that their live performances are so dynamic and engaging that their past recordings have only illustrated a portion of what makes this band so great. Conversely, the band's ethereal melodies and signature shifts in tempo, intensity, and octave lend themselves to the rich layers of a masterfully produced studio recording such as "For The Birds."
FTB was my introduction to The Frames, and after listening to it regularly for about a month, I found it very appealing but it wasn't quite hooking me. Then I saw them live, and I immediately got it! The Frames' mostly unfamiliar music engaged me live in a way that only my favorites usually can, and the songs I'd come to know off FTB finally came to life in concert. As a result, the music quickly became very familiar with the help of "Set List," the live CD from Dublin. As much as I enjoy listening to this energetic live recording, it admittedly lacks the rich production value of the Frames' studio sound, and it always feels a bit 'thin' to me.
I continue to see The Frames perform whenever possible, and the live introductions to their newest songs made them familiar by my first listen to "Burn The Maps." I am so happy to say that this CD just hits the nail right on the head! This beautiful collection of songs is about as cathartic as a live Frames show, while offering the moody ambience that we've come to expect from the band's finest studio efforts. This CD is a beautiful adventure, and one worth taking over and over again.
Free Music Review: it's in my top five all time
Hit: 5 Stars
this record, trying not to sound too cliched, is just....(just)short of being a masterpiece. Were it not for the somewhat poppy "fake" - which has been touted as a Smashing Pumpkins rip off and the radiohead-esque (on a bad day in the studio) "ship caught in the bay" - which for me simply doesn't work - this album would be no.1 on that list. These tracks do however help contrast the greatness of the 10 others, and this greatness really does eclipse those, shall i venture to say, "lapses in judgement". Given fake was the bait for younger teenie boppers to shell out their parent's cash, but songs like "me and my boyfriend" or "people all get ready" could easily have taken the place of "ship caught in the bay". The other tracks....ah.. the other tracks. What a joy. Not a bad moment among them. Colm mac an Iomaire's violin antics (his looped recordings really does give an orchestral feel to the songs) greatly aided the almost frames-trademarked gradual build up from quiet to loud. The final 3 songs, "keepsake", "suffer in silence" and "locusts" make up possibly the best outtro to an album my, in reviewing terms, relatively young ears have heard. and the intro isn't bad either.
Thoroughly recommended.
Free Music Review: buy it
Hit: 5 Stars
This is a truly great album. It sounds a bit like a mix of the shins and modest mouse. Or perhaps just like the shins with a bit more edge and violins.
Finally, A caution to the birds, Underglass, Keepsake, and the excellent final song Locusts are the highlights.
Best moments on the cd: the first time he yells at 1:49 into Finally "when your wants something so much..." bleeding into, "when you found something that good
It's hard to focus on what's right."
And then the peak of the album 57 seconds into Underglass, screaming:
"I want it less than you ever have, I will not accept your disappointment man." Underglass really ranks up there with 'Closer' and 'Killing in the Name of' for songs that sound excellent when your angry.
The last three songs work well together, building up to a repitious, slow and powerful conclusion in Locust: "I'm moving off I'm packing up I'm willing to be wrong. "
Free Music Review: From the violently quiet to the obviously sublime
Hit: 5 Stars
Perhaps Burn the Maps defines the frames perfectly, because it's just so unpredictable. the tracks range from the instantly brilliant fake, the ex-boyfriend style single; to the dark, melodic opener happy.
there's so many gems here, the almost eight minute epic keepsake, which climaxes with hansard moaning 'hunting me down like an insect', and underglass, with hansard again testing himself, bellowing 'i cannot accept your dsapointment man'.
however, one track shines absolutely brillantly, finally is the outstanding one, with jagged guitars and the downbeat lyrics of more despair and the treachery of a break up. absolutely magnificent.