A LIFE A SONG A CIGARETTE – fresh kills landfill

(CD, siluh)

The vast open country is everywhere and in all of us to some extent, as I said here and there before. As soon as the song gets in the centre of attention in music making it takes a lot of strength to ignore the wide open spaces of the prairie. And it takes a lot of strength to follow them down and be led deep inside their vast hills and valleys. It takes time, a certain mixture of ambition and laid back-ness and most of all the sensitivity to carve out the emotions inside you and the atmosphere around you. Then the perfect chord-changes almost come by themselves. It is clear when the horns ought to set in and when a lonely harp adorns the backside of a song or when to use a glockenspiel. There is no quarrell about which parts of the lyrics are passed on to the female singer and where to opt for a break. The songs start to roll by their own heartbeat, which may vary between the slow pace of the broken hearted (mostly), the drunken swagger of emotional catharsis (some) and excessive drunken party (rarely). And if the tape starts rolling at a good moment then something wonderful might be fixed onto magnetic tape.

This six piece band has managed to produce one of the most endearing and encompassing albums I have heard in some time. Well, since “Fading Trails” was released actually. And then I bought the first Linda Ronstadt album on a flea market in the country for 1.50 €. Ah, it is hard to make wonderful compliments these days, when all I really want to say is how much this record has grapped me and made me a fan right here. And it is true “fresh kills landfill” by A life a song a cigarette might be one of the best records to be released in 2007, probably not even just from Austria. Which is saying a lot it being December 2006 as I write this. Unfortunately for the record a release date in January usually is really bad for the year end polls, because they won’t be included in the polls for 2006 and in December 2007 most of the singleminded, dumb and easily distracted wannabe-music journalists that make year end polls are too distracted by anything that is happening more currently. But I don’t worry much for them, because they have been heaped with praise all along obviously, with the high point probably being them recommended to play your wedding, funeral and every party in-between. The most frequent reference is Conor Oberst, though, which probably will make the band sick in a few weeks.

Tell you something, I never was much of a fan of Conor Oberst. I sure liked his albums but I never understood the fanatic, erm … fandom some people had. And I don’t understand the constant mentioning of Oberst in connection with this wonderful band. I hear a lot of other things. The band staggers along a hinted sea shanty rhythm with the narrative song-visions of Colin Meloy. Stephan Stanzel’s singing voice sometimes falls into the same nasal croon as Brian Molko. In their wilder moments they get close to “the curse of the Mekons” and in their lowest but most inspired moments when they try to get all loose ends together in a single vision, then they get close to Gram Parsons as in the generic yet wonderfully real and honest waltz “please let me drink away my broken heart”, a drinking song as perfect as the old ones that have also never lost their appeal.

But that is not at all what makes for the beauty and meaning of this record. It is not in the single parts or what you may dissect in detail from this or that song. The true beauty comes from the songs as a whole. Let yourself be dragged along by their wavering and staggering, fall into their emotional depths with them and be carried along to new heights when they take you on a flight.