Sunday, May 15, 2011

Bill's Hyperbolic Music Reviews #12- Cheer-Accident- No Ifs, Ands, Or Dogs

NOTE: Expect an even-more-subjective-than-usual review for this installment, as I am the biggest Cheer-Accident fanboy imaginable. I believe them to be the greatest progressive-rock band of all time, an opinion I share with approximately no one. Now that I've made that clear, onto the review.

Cheer-Accident are not a band to rest on their laurels. After more than twenty years of being a spastic math/noise/avant/comic-prog unit whose albums were distributed on micro-indies like Skin Graft and Pravda, they streamlined their approach into one of neo-Rock in Opposition, signed to Cuneiform Records, and released the most focused and critically acclaimed album they had ever made, Fear Draws Misfortune, which exposed them to a whole new audience. Pitchfork reviewed it, Cameron "I only like folk-punk and ska" LeViere tolerated it, and, had their new record mined identical territory, no one could have blamed them. But No Ifs, Ands, Or Dogs is not Fear Draws Misfortune 2: Fear Harder. It is not quite like anything they've ever done (though you couldn't mistake it for any other band), and it is, in my opinion, the best record they have ever made.

The album opens with "Drag You Down", which nearly disproves the point I made about No Ifs' uniqueness in their catalog in the last paragraph, because it sounds like it could have come off either of their prog-pop albums, The Why Album and What Sequel? However, I don't care, because "Drag You Down" is fantastic. The verse is a trademark inscrutable C-A groove (it sounds sort of like it's in 13, but I really don't have any idea), the chorus is catchy as hell, and, well, it fuckin' rocks. 'Nuff said. However, it is immediately bested by the sharp stylistic left turn that is "Trial of Error", which is one of the strangest songs I have ever heard by anyone. It opens with garish synths and multiple drum machines hammering out bizarre polyrhythms, gradually calms down into a muted verse featuring what I believe the lowest singing bandleader Thymme Jones has ever tracked, swells back up into a crazier version of the intro, and finally resolves with some dissonant piano stabs. I was left thinking, "What the fuck?" the first time I heard it, but I've truly grown to love it.

There are 15 tracks on this album, so I'm not going to bore you with a description of all of them. However, I will let you know that the first two songs are far from the only standouts. "This Is The New That", "Sleep", and the two-parter "Life In Pollyanna/Death By Pollyanna" are fantastically complex, utterly unique, and prog as FUCK. Elsewhere, "Barely Breathing" and "Cynical Girl" are terrific pop songs skewed slantways by bizarre arrangements and occasional RIO flirtations. Finally, scattered throughout this album are five or so interludes, some of which revisit themes from past C-A albums, and all of which are very cool and help greatly with the sequencing of what could have easily been a very schizophrenic record (like the band's earlier double album Enduring the American Dream, which, though great, is possibly the worst-flowing record I have ever heard).

If you are a pop fan, or hell, even a prog "fan" whose knowledge of the genre doesn't extend further than Yes, ELP, or Jethro Tull, I can't foresee you enjoying this album very much at all. If, however, you are at all an adventurous listener, you owe it to yourself to check No Ifs, Ands, Or Dogs out (as well as the rest of the C-A catalog). And, of course, if you are a Cheer-Accident fan, you should have this one by now (EDIT: I just realized this is "officially" released May 31st, so let me amend that to "you should have pre-ordered this one by now"). I never thought they'd top The Why Album or Introducing Lemon, but they have, man. They FUCKIN' have.

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