I was madly in love with Mass Solo Revolt's last album, Easy Mark (which I wrote about my feelings fairly in-depth here). Their second (or third, really) album I felt mostly lukewarm about.
Easy Mark was all punch and vibrancy, and it had a certain unpolished and rushed feeling to it that I'd liken somewhat to Wolf Parade's Apologies to the Queen Mary. Much like how Wolf Parade's second album felt entirely different due to the restraint and polish poured all over it, MSR's Bend in Time feels the same way. A lot of the messy energy that defined Easy Mark is noticeably absent, and in its place there's a more controlled and maybe even paired-back sound.
It says a lot, I think, that the first time I listened to Easy Mark I just wanted to play it again (and again, and again, for about a whole week straight) but for this one, I listened once, maybe twice, and have mostly forgotten most of it. It's just not the same for me. Maybe I'll listen to it again in a few months, and find out I over-hyped myself on the idea of another Mass Solo Revolt album, and fall in love with it with a clear memory, but for now... I feel pretty feh about it, aside from this song, the opening track, which is nice (but almost a little too long).
1.) Let's fuck this month up! This is what the first minute thirty of this song----his magnificent, perfect, wonderful song----is saying. Let's go out and tear May a new asshole! We're not going to sit around and waste May, no! We're going to spend it blowing shit up, getting things done!
2.) I want to somehow queue up the woman from Queens of the Stone Age's Songs from the Deaf who goes, "Now, something you should all drop to your knees for and worship, but you're too stupid to realize it yourself!" at the beginning of this song because I love it that much, and you should too.
It took months for this album to slowly worm it's way into my life, or at least that's the way I remember it. It all started with a review I read on the Allmusic Blog that I can't find now so I can't link to it but believe me, I read it, and I was like, "You know what, I should listen to this album!" It didn't have any influences I was too familiar with (aside from Pavement) but there was comment in the review that Martin Brummeler effectively perfectly captures the production values of early 90's indie rock and I was curious.
I've always thought the production sound of eras in important to the sound of the music. You could take Easy Mark and mix it in a different way, clean it up, change the guitar sounds a bit, and you'd have an entirely different song. It wouldn't feel like the early 90's any more. If you fiddled with it enough and put it through a four-track you could probably make it sound like the late 1960's, you know? So if this Brummeler guy actually made a new album that sounds like an old album, I want to hear it, just because.
Unfortunately for me at the time, Mass Solo Revolt was not available to download illegally anywhere on the internet. I looked high and low, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I gave up my hunt, not having any money for it, and just let it reside in the back of my head.
After about a month I was at a friend's house and his father had Napster open, the legal one, so I looked for bands that came to mind and one of the first that came up was Mass Solo Revolt. I did a search, pulled up Easy Mark, rocked out to the first minute and a half and then suddenly was horridly offended by Brummeler's vocals on it and all the other tracks. I moved on, feeling a little bummed that I spent so long being all hopeful for an album only to be disappointed.
It didn't get out of my mind, though. Days later I loaded it up again and listened to this whole song and I thought: you know what, this kind of rocks, I want to hear it in another setting. I still didn't have any money though.
One day I couldn't take it anymore and I made the huge mistake of buying it through iTunes, all covered in DRM, but I was immediately addicted to the album as a whole. I listened to it probably 10 times in one day by the third day I had it. I played it everywhere, I played almost nothing else. I probably played the whole album at least 25 times in the first two weeks I had it.
What is it about it? I'm not really sure. There's something about the guitar sound across the whole record that really appeals to me. It's also pretty well paced, with only one real 'slow' song followed by the one real 'arty intro' that lasts thirty seconds and brings us crashingly into Bed Maker. Nearly every song is upbeat and has a definite groove to it, and thankfully they're all full of hooks and memorable lines. (The album doesn't even end on a down note/slow song like most do, thanks to Hostage Taker, probably the most 'single worthy' song on the album, being followed up by 'bonus track' Rubber Knife which should make you want to bounce all over the place ridiculously, unless you have no soul.)
I left a comment on their page on Last.FM saying, "I'm the only person who listens to this!" because at the time, I was. I probably still am.
Someone then sent me a message on Last.FM from Brummeler's account (either it was Martin or Jim Frye) thanking me for listening and I ended up asking a few questions ("What's it like to have people review your stuff? Do people sometimes get it all wrong? Is it weird to have people like me listen to your music obsessively? Can you send me lyrics?") and ended up exchanging emails with Jim Frye (who plays bass on this album).
Jim's pretty rad: he sent me a copy of Mass Solo Revolt's first album, The Sap, with handmade and numbered packaging (#52!) that is pretty rad. He told me about a year ago that he was going to send me a shirt, because I wanted to buy one of the red ones, but then I didn't hear from him for months. I dropped him an email because I still wanted to buy a shirt even if he wasn't just going to send me one, and he said he hadn't forgotten. Months pass. I left a comment on a blog entry where they say they're going to be recording soon saying "yay! new material!" and Jim left a comment going "BRAD! I haven't forgotten about you!"
It's been months since then without any word, but it's no big deal, I just think it's funny. I don't normally like to have any sort of dialog with or meet bands I love, partly because I am skittish and I am so often disappointed by people that I'd rather just not risk ruining my perception of a group, but Jim (and I assume Martin) are cool ass people.
Due to my iTunes copy being covered in DRM and me not having a real CD copy (probably because I will never get to see them play live and can't buy it from their merch stand) I had to buy the song All Bark from AmazonMP3 in order to include it on my Best of 2008 playlist. Today I'm going to have to buy Easy Mark to include it here in playable form probably.
But that's OK: this album is so rad that I will slowly buy it twice. You should buy it twice, too.