Today I’m going to share with you a band who have come and gone, and why a bit of luck can come handy when you accidentally buy an album.
“Though when we’re running out of the drugs
and the conversation’s winding away.
I wouldn’t trade one stupid decision
for another five years of lies.”
Those lyrics from All My Friends off the album Sound of Silver by the LCD Soundsystem
Slowly strolling across the village-like compact disc palace that is Camden Town, I find yet another stall selling someone’s journey of CD history and embark on an album I’ve been meaning to buy for a number of months. Take note that this CD is in fact not the one I was looking for, but one simply buy the same band. I had known who LCD Soundsystem were, I just only knew them for their one song ‘Drunk Girls’, which I had thought was on this album. Of course I had checked the back of the CD before buying it, but I thought to myself, ‘go on, take a gamble. You’ve heard one of their songs, so you could very well fall in love with this album.’
As the other albums I had just acquired were ones I knew well, this one was the first one I was going to listen to. The first thing I noticed about it was that each song was significantly longer than your average song on your average album. Each song was about five to seven minutes (with exceptions); but was that a good or bad thing? Quite frankly, until I had listened to it I didn’t know. I don’t mind taking a good eight and a half minutes to listen to one piece, but it would take a plentiful sense of concentration.
So, how was it? If you’re wandering whether an eight and a half minute song was too long, I can tell you, as I expected, it was enjoyable. It even let me discover the song for longer, it stretched out the timespan I had to ponder thoughts I had throughout the song rather than bunching them into (what seems molecular after listening to this song) two or three minutes. The band pull off a magnificent concoction of electro-indie like Hot Chip and mellow lyrics like Yuck. Something else that stands out in the album is the amount that the USA is talked about, including the two songs ‘North American Scum’, and ‘New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down’.
The track I’d recommend you listen to most is ‘New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down’. It starts off with lead singer James Murphy playing a solo part on the piano, and eventually the drums and bass come in and the song lifts from a very melancholy vibe into a more vivacious and exciting movement. Suddenly we come across an effervescent climax and what we think is the end, but only those of us that wait until the very end of the piece, like that feeling of when we find the hidden track in an album, find one last explosion of sound.
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Thanks for reading!
Ethan.
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