Fairweather "Lusitania" CD
[Equal Vision]
Damnit, I want the old Fairweather back. Of course that's impossible, as between the time that I got this disc and came around to writing this review the band decided to break up, not that they would have gone back to their old style anyway, but... I just don't get it. Their first record was a masterpiece of heavy, catchy emo, then they went all artsy indie rock and got boring, and here they continue in the artsy indie rock vein, but they're even more artsy! Granted this is better than the "Alaska" EP. It's not quite as boring. The aptly titled "Derivative Opener" begins - an experimental instrumental sort of thing with droning guitars, percussion, brief snippets of female vocal tones, etc. - not bad, but derivative indeed. "Letter of Intent" is one of the better, shorter songs: Keeping the energy level high and refraining from dragging on or dwelling on too many somber quiet parts that aren't necessarily effective (as a handful of the other songs do). Just past the midway point of the disc is another instrumental, "1195", which is really fucking good, experimenting with the mix by placing the drums resonantly in the distance with some ambient hums, subtle piano, and repetitious guitar lines. It's quite hypnotic, and I'm pretty impressed by it as a whole. The At the Drive-In influence aren't hitting me so much this time around, but they're still there. A lot of this also reminds me of Garrison and more recent Fugazi (in its "quiet heaviness", if that makes sense). I don't know. The record's just too damn long. All of the songs that reach for or top five minutes are fairly bland by their halfway points, and even shorter tracks like "Mercer Island" do little but contribute to the album's all too lengthy hour-long running time. It's a noisier piece that uses a rawer distortion, but it just comes off as being sort of generic. It's not "retro rock" or whatever, but it's a competent song ruined by going for that fuzzy sort of sound with no rhyme or reason. The recording is great. I'll say that. The percussion sounds excellent, the vocals are bright, the guitars are nice and thick without being too heavy or too jangly, the bass doesn't get drowned out, etc. I wouldn't change much. Perhaps the guitars need to be as bright as the vocals, which might give more space to the low-end of the bass. But I'm not that picky here, it sounds really good. The entire layout is printed on matte paper, and the booklet is enormous. Every spread has a full page color photo of some sort of texture (all of the photos are shot close-up and look excellent) with one blank white page that has the lyrics to a song or two along the right-hand side. Most of the lyrics are cryptic, all of them are personal, and they have their moments either way. "And now it seems so odd to me that I believed in anything will this winter's hold let go in spring becoming more than how I'm viewing everything. This is what you've been planning on you say you want to know what's been going on. Can't you tell? We always are falling away." Oh well. That's life. I loved the first record, then they lost me, and they were starting to get me back a little with some of this stuff, but now that they've broken up... I'll remember them for the first record above all. (6/10)
Running time - 59:55, Tracks: 13
[Notable tracks: Letter of Intent, I Dread the Time, 1195]
Equal Vision Records - http://www.equalvision.com

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