Jue's Blog

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Banshee Beat — Animal Collective (click here if you can’t see the player)

Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends (Coldplay)

I’ve always wondered how happily married songwriters like Chris Martin can sing so convincingly about the sort of heartache that I’ve always assumed (or hoped) would wane after one’s college years. And listening to Coldplay’s new album, I think I know the answer: you just aim your heartache at bigger and more grownup things. Where Parachutes was full of lovelorn angst, and A Rush of Blood to the Head a more epic, channeled version of the same — and X & Y neither full nor channeled of anything — Viva la Vida is a meditation on life in general. With a tried-and-true combination of searching earnestness and mixed metaphors — “Be my mirror my sword and shield / My missionaries in a foreign field” — Mr. Martin gives us a glimpse of everything we should feel sad, lost, lonely, or inspired to experience. He’s a little vague on what those things actually are, but I’m sure you’ll get the feelings anyway.

Just so there’s no mistake, I did like this album, and others did too. Obviously if you’re looking for words of wisdom, you should go read a novel. But if you want pounding, emotional, kitschy rock, pick up some new and improved Coldplay. Viva la Vida will be out/online in stores June 17, but you can also grab a torrent of the leak if you can’t wait.

Feels (Animal Collective)

When a friend introduced me to Animal Collective a few weeks back, I was surprised by how familiar the songs sounded. Some moments it seemed as if the melodies would capture a fragment of my thought process and spin it out into a pleasant wash of noise (and yes, I was sober). In fact, noise wouldn’t be a bad description for the band’s technique. They’ve made their name as an “experimental” group, and even their most accessible songs still contain a distinctly avant-garde streak. Some of the albums take the amorphous song structures so far that it’s hard to see, on the basis of those songs, why the band is so popular. Instead, it’s in the tuneful, intuitive manner of albums like (the aptly titled) Feels that you can really hear the fruits of their experimentation. The songs aren’t overtly complicated–there’s usually a repetitive, one or two-chord hook that just builds and accumulates layers of sound and melody until you have something really lush and almost epic. But still intimate. Give it a listen; you won’t regret it.