MP3: The Mary Onettes - The night before the funeral
Dayjob work is crushing my creative impulses, hence today's mp3 post comes from Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson:
Despite the brilliance that is "Dare", I found myself somewhat disappointed by "Islands". By no means is it a bad album -- and as it was crafted by The Mary Onettes it often exceeds even the near-triumphs of their contemporaries -- it just didn't deliver on the promise of the "Dare EP". I was expecting an album that would easily surpass their self-titled debut, and, for me at least, "Islands" failed to do that. "The night before the funeral" seems to fall somewhere between "Islands" and the band's lavish debut. The song's dour, sober theme is explored more along the lines of "Explosions" than "Cry for love", a track whose shifting, echoing chords move cleverly, yet fail to attain the engaging intimacy easily found on the debut. While "The night before the funeral" is unmistakably a Mary Onettes song, there is still something lacking -- its closing moments fade away, a fate that doesn't befall tracks like "Slow" or "The companion" whose climaxes exultantly resonate, almost refusing to be forgotten. It's that quality that was lost somewhat in the transition from the first to the second album, and also plagues "The night before the funeral". To be completely fair, I am being more critical of The Mary Onettes than I would of almost any other band, but only because they set such a high standard themselves. I've come to expect quite a bit from them, as they are a band who contributed heavily to the soundtrack of the last few years of my life, though when all said and done, "The night before the funeral" is a fine song. Did it fill me with the same emotions that a track like "Lost" or "Dare" does? Sadly, no, but it does more for me than most of the music I've heard recently.
The Mary Onettes - The night before the funeral