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Tunes

Best tunes of 2011: #15 Kasabian “Let’s roll just like we used to”

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A few years ago, I developed this theory that Kasabian’s records alternated between excellent and just mediocre. I was completely enamoured with their self-titled debut in 2004, with its melding of the best of Madchester’s best party-down qualities. I was disappointed with the sophomore record, 2006’s “Empire”, but then, the quartet from Leicester hit it out of the park again with 2009’s “West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum“. Now, I don’t know if the pattern continues because I have yet to give their last album, 2017’s “For crying out loud”, a chance but if it does, their next album should be one for the ages.

Of course, according to this dubious theory of mine (and I realize it is only my own opinion, man), their 2011 effort, “Velociraptor!”, would not be one to recommend to those looking to hear the best of the band twice named best live act by the Brit Awards. There are, however, a handful of tracks worth mentioning and the opening number, “Let’s roll just like we used to”, is most definitely at the forefront of these.

The lyrics are a harkening back to a simpler time “when we were young our hearts got lost in the circles”. The party boys are older and looking wistfully back at their rises and falls, the friends they’ve lost and the “ones that got away, oh”. The gong and horn call from far off that begin the song resound to us as if from a dream or through the ages from this half-remembered time. Then, the beat kicks in with the bass line, all snazzy and suave, and you see yourself walking into a bar or a party like James Bond oozing retro cool. The music is your theme song, calling to mind action hero invincibility and youthful exuberance. Yes, the song is remembering things better than they actually were, No bad times or hangovers, only euphoria and drunken debauchery, providing all sorts of stories to regale.

Can our aging bodies still handle the grind of party life? Well, let’s roll just like we used to and see.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2011 list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Stars “There is no love in fluorescent light”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Stars
Album Title: There is no love in fluorescent light
Year released: 2017
Details: Gatefold sleeve, double LP, limited edition, bone coloured

The skinny: For those of you tired of me posting pretty pictures of the lovely vinyl this Canadian indie pop group keeps putting out, rest assured this will be the last of these posts for a while. “There is no love in fluorescent light” is Stars’ eighth and final album thus far and the last of their representation in my vinyl collection. And to be honest, this is the album by the group with which I am least familiar, this morning’s spin still only brings the amount of times I have listened to it to a handful. Nevertheless, there are some great tracks here, including the one below. And well, doesn’t that bone colour look pretty?

Standout track: “Fluorescent light”

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2001: #1 Elbow “Any day now”

<< #2

As great as 2001 was for indie rock as a whole, especially considering the garage rock explosion and all the bands I discovered as a result, whenever I think of the year, there is one band and one album that always comes to mind. Interesting, then, that I didn’t really come upon Elbow’s debut album, “Asleep in the back”, until the spring of 2002.

As I mentioned a few times over the course of this series, I made the move to Ottawa with Victoria in the summer of 2001. However, we were pretty regular in our trips back to Toronto that first year in the city to visit family and friends. The following spring we managed to coordinate a trip to Toronto with my friends’ annual spring camping trip to Haliburton. I had arranged beforehand to hitch a ride back to Ottawa with James, a friend of ours from high school, who was actually living in the area. It was a great trip as usual but a bit cold still and my ride back to Ottawa decided to ditch the trip early. And so it was that we made the three plus hour trip back in the wee hours of the Sunday morning and I got back to my apartment just before 6am.

Victoria wasn’t due back until much later that day so I had plenty of time to sleep. While getting ready for bed, I slipped into my CD carousel this album I had just gotten by chance and pressed play. In my sleep deprived state, the opening track just enveloped me in warmth and I smiled in spite of myself. I slipped under the covers and replayed the track, set the sleep mode, pressed the repeat button and fell asleep to it. Later, when I awoke, I gave the rest of the album a listen and fell in love with it too. It has since become one of my favourites, not just of the year, but of the whole decade. You might remember that another song off “Asleep in the back”, the first single off it, “Red” appeared at #12 on this list.

Of course, that opening track that serenaded me to sleep in that early morning in the spring of 2002 was “Any day now”, my pick for the best tune of 2001. At just over six minutes in length, it feels epic and immense, a song about yearning, impatience, and the need to break free. There’s something sinister about the organs, lots of sustain and reverb, menacing and teasing. And then, the bass drops in with the drums, heavy and violent but the violence never appears, it’s always a threat, which makes it worse, almost like a Tarantino film in this way. The tension is only raised by the hints of children playing at the playground. The vocals are repetitive and mechanical and mesmerizing, looping over and over again, practice makes perfect makes reality. Guy Garvey finally shows his stride and breaks out at the end, adding a flourish of vocals that foreshadow a whole successful career that this song is hoping for, twisting fate into a pretzel.

Not convinced? Listen to it again, maybe next time it’ll take. It certainly has done me in.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2001 list, click here.