07.27.06

The stars are watching them and so should you: The New Tragedies

Posted in a little bit rock and roll, some albums we done liked others we ain't, the new tragedies - July 27th, 2006 at 12:39 pm by Cricket

I almost gave up on this album. Not because it isn’t good, it is, but the second listening filled my head with memories of a long-gone relationship. A third listening had me poised to Google the ex-boyfriend and see if he’s still alive. Finally, a fourth put me past all that and made me glad that for all the horror of that relationship, I at least have the stories to tell and the experiences and memories of when it was good. (Though those are still tempered by the badness that came after.) So let me just say to the ex-boyfriend who surely isn’t reading this: I’m sorry I couldn’t save you from yourself, but I’m not sorry you’re gone because no one really needs an alcoholic asshole like you. Suffice to say, over all, the album was actually pretty cathartic for me and if that doesn’t mean great music, I don’t know what does.

VanityVanity, the debut release from The New Tragedies is a leisurely night swim in a warm deep pool whose bottom is covered in broken glass. It slides over you, calming, a bit sexy but a little dangerous at the edges if you good down too far. Musically, it’s the kind of thing you want to wash over you as you lay on the couch with your eyes closed, wondering if you can make your heartbeat match the tempo. The lyrics, though, are emotionally jagged and will poke at you, stirring up and digging at things you might once have tried not to feel.

Six listenings in and I’m still trying to pin point who it reminds me of, maybe Yo La Tengo or the Delgados, perhaps the Pernice Brothers or Guided by Voices? Maybe none of those and something all its own. It’d almost be indie rock if it wasn’t nearly folk broken down and shaken up with steel guitar, cello, piano and an unlikely but well utilized glockenspiel. The New Tragedies are at their core a duo, Aaron and Bev Weidner, who sound exponentially larger than a pair of singers with great lyrics.

With husband and wife duos I fear I will end up with saccharine-sweet songs, thick as clotted cream with sappy romance. The first cut off this album, “Lipstick Kiss,” dispels any notion that this is that kind of act. “There’s a lipstick kiss on my cheek/you couldn’t miss/and the night before/you smelled perfume you never wore.” The lyrics play though a couple that never sees each other, teeters on the brink of cheating and only almost resolved as they come back together. The rest of the album doesn’t necessarily get more upbeat, but there’s deepness and a reality to it that makes the painful poetry of the lyrics worth listening to over and over again.

There is a certain amount of even-tempered romance in “Talk to Me” and “Eye for an Eye” that feels all at once like a new relationship and the solid comfort of being with someone who knows everything about you. The wobbly danger of a relationship about to crumble come back through in “Someday Tomorrow” and “Hand Word Heart.”

“Kansas City Misery” is by far my favorite track here and not just because of the steel underlying the melody here (or am I that easy?). “The wrong time with the right girl/As you stare down my cigarette smile/I’m looking back sweetly/As if you didn’t know me.” The harmony here is strong and fairly heart-wrenching as it plays over the moaning heartbreak of the steel guitar. As much as I love this album, a whole album of songs just like this would assure that I never listened to anything else for weeks. It’s really that good.

I expect to hear “Monday Morning Makeup” on the radio some day soon. Or I would if I listened to the radio. It definitely does recall Yo La Tengo to some extent, in a pleasing almost pop kind of way.

“Overboard” and “To Be Sung To” almost make me wish I was in love, so I could sing them to someone as we listened to them. When someone finally falls in love with me and writes a song about me, I hope it’s something lyrically like “To Be Sung To.” The album closes out as solidly as it starts, leaving me nearly wanting more, but glad to just push ‘play’ again and go through it all once more, twice more.

This album is fresh out from New Scratch, and because they are cool like that, you can listen to the whole thing at the band’s site, so you can fall in love with it before you buy it.

I hope more tour dates are coming for this band. I’d love to go see them somewhere where I could drink red wine and smoke too many cigarettes and just close my eyes and let my mind make up all the details of the stories the lyrics tell.

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