Album Reviews
Have a sudden craving for noodly guitars? Well, look no further than Lifted Bells. The band around Braid/Hey Mercedes’ Bob Nanna, which also features members of acts such as Stay Ahead Of The Weather and Their/They’re/There, has just released its debut album, ‘Minor Tantrums’.
Yeah yeah, we know… you are just as sick and tired of the whole ‘emo revival’ thing as we are. But the good news is that Lifted Bells have made a very solid album on which the songs really do sound like minor tantrums. Or like Nanna said, ‘There is definitely a frenetic, get-things-off-your-chest quality to the album…you let it out, you feel a little better, then you get on with it.’
Constantly bordering on devolving into a complete freakout but always reined in at the last second with mathy precision, these ten songs ebb and flow with riffs that fly around like ricocheting bullets. And in the middle of it all is Nanna trying to find a silver lining in even the shittiest of situations (‘Tragedy Gold’, ‘Stop Crying And Sing’). But the band will just as well make room for a beautiful acoustic track that comes in the form of ‘Miss Pedestria,’ which thrives on jumbled percussion and fooling around with delay and modulation. Something that also pops up in cuts like ‘ Cemetary Cats’ and ‘Choir Sings The Cure’. In the end, it all ties together nicely into a very cohesive album. Dig it!
Track listing:
- Follow Me
- Inevitable Devil
- No One Can Save Us
- Choir Sing the Cure
- Three Doves
- Cemetery Cats
- Wheel of Fortunates
- Tragedy Gold
- Miss Pedestria
- Stop Crying and Sing
Lacking the talent to actually play in a band, Tom decided he would write about bands instead. Turns out his writing skills are mediocre at best as well.
