Darkest Hours
The Darkest Hours – Dedication
Royal Pendletons
Royal Pendletons – Royal Blood Part II
Elliott Smith
Just Listen
I
Generally, we write about music here on GloNo, as many people tend to do. And while one might think that writing about music takes music as its direct subject, the preposition really works more in the context of location. That is, when I write about music, generally speaking it is in the vicinity of the object, rather than about the thing in itself. Writing about music in this sense deals with the context, the surroundings. The reception. The economics. The politics. The performance vis-à-vis something else. The personality.
Writing about music is completely extrinsic. It’s not about the music. Whether it can be—in any but the most superficial sense—remains to be seen. Or written.
Ugly Casanova – Sharpen Your Teeth
Ugly Casanova – Sharpen Your Teeth (Sub Pop)
Varying parts Modest Mouse, Califone, and Appalachian hollering, this album got the full treatment in the Features section.
Ugly Casanova
When the branches tap against the window and the house creaks in the wind, this album will keep you company and assure you that it’s all OK.
I’m No Rock and Roll Fun
I did a bad thing on Wednesday night. I was in a bar, some random joint in a part of Chicago that I’m not too familiar with. I was there at the behest of a few recent acquaintances; we had gone out to drink and bullshit. What we didn’t know was this bar was going to have live music that night. We found out when the band began to set up.
A New Thing on GLONO
You may have noticed we have a new “tab” up in the navigation menu: Reviews. This will take you to a new section of the site containing — you guessed it — music reviews. Some of you old-timers may remember a tagline that Glorious Noise used to sport: “This is not a reviews site.”
So why the change of heart?
Ether – Great Ocean Road
This album sounds like a celebrity side project. No, it sounds worse than a celebrity side project. It sounds like a celebrity side project without the celebrity.
Oh wait, that’s because it is a celebrity side project without the celebrity. Ether is the band behind Russell Crowe’s Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts. We all know that actors shouldn’t be allowed to sing or play in a band, but it’s news to us that they shouldn’t be allowed to ditch their band and let those people record boring, acoustic schlock like Great Ocean Road either.
Seriously, before I found out who they were, I thought this might be “praise music.” Their logo is the fish symbol, they have that overproduced, acoustic sheen on everything, and they have intensely lame lyrics like these from “The Link”:
What is the link between pain and true love?
Where is the road that all sorrows end?
What is the bond between a mother and a child?
The members of Ether should take up acting, and maybe Russell Crowe can hook them up with parts in his next movie.