In the first, he’s prompted by his best friend, he says goodbye to the regulars at the local bar in the second, and has a passionate dream in the third in which he sings to “You”. The scene-setting opener “Near to the Wild Heart of Life” details the protagonist’s journey of leaving his hometown in three verses. The phrase of Near to the Wild Heart of Life not only signals verbosity - the album features some of the band’s most poetic and thoroughly constructed lyrics - but also its central subject matter: the chase after life’s passions and the effect it has on our spirit. This kind of introspection runs throughout Japandroids’ third album Near to the Wild Heart of Life.Īs we’ve seen, the title can be used as a shorthand for listeners to predict what a Japandroids album will sound like. Even its surrendered closer, “Continuous Thunder”, gives passion to measured expectations: “Oh, and if I had all the answers / And you had the body you wanted / Would we love with a legendary fire?” It’s a rare moment of apprehension in an album that’s full of go-for-broke, living-in-the-moment maximalism. (Japandroids never made anything as spotty as Pablo Honey.) With an expanded lyrical palette that was capital “R” Romantic, Celebration Rock was full of music which had the intensity of a life and death struggle and an optimistic spirit that made the listener feel like anything is possible. It’s the band’s Great Leap Forward - like from Bleach to Nevermind or The Bends to OK Computer. Still, Post-Nothing was no warning for their second album, Celebration Rock - a virtual highlight reel of classic rock tics, gorged on blood, sweat, and beers. Japandroids certainly did not break any new ground on the album, but they the played with rare passion and real physical exertion. Their worldview was beautifully summed up in the band’s first epic, “Young Hearts Spark Fire”, which featured the beautiful refrain of: “I don’t wanna worry about dying / I just wanna worry about those sunshine girls.” Post-Nothing is a knowing title. Their debut album Post-Nothing was powerfully lo-fi, featuring a rigid two-instrument-two-voice delivery system that knocked twee songs into the upper decks with the fury of a hardcore band.
The Canadian rock duo Japandroids have always been equal parts precious and precocious.
0 kommentar(er)
