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August 26, 2005
Ways We'll Never Ever See
Sunset Rubdown - Snake's Got A Leg pt. 1
Spencer Krug's voice is a truly amazing thing; it makes everything he sings sound so desperate and wrecked and urgent. And the way he records it too- with tons of double-tracking- lends it an alien quality, but still gives it so much impact. A kind of back-of-the-throat mourning.
This title track, which is actually on the album twice, has probably the strongest melody on the LP (with the possible exception of 'I'll Believe in Anything, You'll Believe in Anything', which, hey, the Sunset Rubdown version is way more, hm, intense than the Wolf Parade versions, I'll tell you), and some of Spencer's best lyrics. As I mentioned a while back (at the bottom), there's something oddly compelling about the way Krug exploits the nouns in his sentences for all their worth (as accumulated shorthand or abbreviation for longer, more unwieldy connotations), but without resorting to any kind of easy symbolism either. For example, "I got a jacket/it's a coat full of contraband/and I got/I got so many high heels to sell/and I got/I got so many hands to hand 'em over with." It's such a neat and absurd image (based mostly around just things, not descriptions), and it works so well in the context of the song.
'Snake's Got A Leg pt. 1' also has one of the best arrangements of any of the songs on the album, with it's sweet saloon-washed piano and cartoony one-man band percussion (which sounds fantastic), plus a semi-creepy ending that's got some great lonesome handlcaps (like Radiohead's 'We Suck Young Blood'). Just a classic and beautiful song.
Also talked about before- but out of context- was the fact that Sunset Rubdown is now going to be a full band, and Spencer hopes to release an EP of more solo recordings before putting together an LP with the newly revamped and more populous Sunset Rubdown band.
In the meantime, you can buy "Snake's Got A Leg" from the cool folks at Global Symphonic, for about $9 or so.
Posted by Kevin at August 26, 2005 12:57 AM
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Comments
thanks for the Sunset Rubdown track, it made my day
Posted by: thinktank at August 26, 2005 08:18 PM