White Whale - WWI
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Music CD Cover
Artist: White WhaleEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2006-07-25
Music Label: Merge Records
Soundtracks:
- Nine Good Fingers
- O' William, O' Sarah
- The Admiral
- I Love Lovely Chinese Gal
- What's An Ocean For?
- We're Just Temporary, Ma'am
- Forgive The Forgiven
- Fidget And Fudge
- Yummyman Farewell
- King's Indian
- One Prayer
Free Music Notes for WWI
Free Music Review: Aim high, sail low.
Hit: 3 Stars
Butterglory, blah blah blah. Nobody here has yet mentioned that Matt Suggs made two solo albums since Butterglory's last album, which by the way was in 1997, 10 years ago. Mr. Suggs has come a long way since the shambling indie pop of that band! Despite the collaboration here, this White Whale album sounds like a logicial continuation of what he was developing over those albums.
a complaint about the amazon "product description": why mention Big Star, Black Sabbath or Badfinger? I don't get the connection at all. Okay, maybe the Badfinger in the last half of "Yummyman Farewell". Maybe.
Arcade Fire (or even the Decemberists) is a more apt comparison, which you can't help just from seeing the artwork for both albums. I'm not exactly sure what lies beneath Arcade Fire's songs, but beneath White Whale's sweeping smarty-pants indie rock is an barnacly underbelly of blues and folk, even at times Irish/Celtic folk. The Unreal Folk Blues Of White Whale? Suggs has a distinctive voice that has occasionally reminded me of Nick Drake with more oomph, or a more mealy-mouthed Beck.
"We're Just Temporary Ma'am" would be my pick for a single or exploratory download.
All the buzzes and drum fills, tinkling pianos, build-ups and break downs are in the right places, and somehow this album pulls off the curious trick of seeming both adventurous and predictible at the same time. I guess it's all a matter of whether you've heard too much of this before or not. If you've never heard of Arcade Fire or the Decemberists or White Whale and are trying to pick between the 3, I'd say White Whale might be the easiest port of entry because Suggs' vocals are easier to swallow than the shouty Arcade Fire or the nasally Decemberists.
Oh, and as for the pre-war/seafaring references, I'm not bothered that they focus on a time and subject that probably gets next to zero hits at google, nor am I bothered that they often don't make sense. I say: you GO, white whale. I need all the breaks I can get from the gangstas, playahs, and heart-on-my-sleevers that dominate the charts (and, often, the "indie" world as well). Who is semolina pilchard, anyway? Does it matter?
WWI Poster
This is the new band of Matt Suggs (Butterglory), Rob Pope (The Get Up Kids), and members of Thee Higher Burning Fire. Amassing the power of Big Star with the fury of Black Sabbath and the mesmerizing wiles of Badfinger. This is their debut.Subjects can overcome the moment, while styles can quietly and seemingly by some consensus, start to dominate. So it is that indie rock's turned toward the literary and historical narrative, via Okkervil River, the Decemberists, the Arcade Fire, and now, Lawrence, Kansas's White Whale. Maybe this is the same current that made punk rock a "safe" study for academics in the late-'90s--a current that puts grad students in rock bands. As it relates to White Whale, the literary/historical turn here is grandly set against minor-key, piano-colored tunes that feature mixed choruses that'll delight Arcade Fire fans (along with fans of bands who share members with WW--the Get-Up Kids, Butterglory, and Thee Higher Burning Fire). There are exclamatory, epic sweeps aplenty here--as when singer Matt Suggs intones "And who throws parties like these anymore? / Did they not go out of fashion before the war?" The tunes here do stand out, but they bog down in their lyrical weight, something a great book rarely does. --Andrew Bartlett
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