Black Wooden Ceiling Opening(3.2008, PWE&Sun)
Verdict: Weezer?
Due to my life situation at the time of the Mount Eerie "metal" tour I missed the now legendary spectacle. But the Gods of rock n' roll have looked kindly on me with the release of this 10" recorded during that era. Now, I don't know how heavy the show's were, but in all honesty this album isn't as dark and black wooden (that's the style of music right?) as one would expect from all the black cover art. I don't mean to belittle these songs, because I love them all, but they are more in the Weezer Pinkerton days of rock than the scare your parents and sacrifice a goat level of double bass pedal destruction. But maybe Phil wasn't going for that anyways.
Lost Wisdom(10. 2008, PWE&Sun)
Verdict: Maybe Phil should have married Julie Doiron instead.
It's quite apparent Phil has had an indie rock crush on Julie Doiron for quite some time now. The classic Microphones album Don't Wake Me Up contains a few ripped chord progressions and even lyrics from various Eric's Trip songs and he's covered them on It Was Hot We Stayed In The Water, but now Phil's school boy crush has finally been realized in a cozy album featuring the two song birds working side by side. The result is absolutely charming. Julie's legendary vocals manage to take even more breath out of Phil's already breathtaking songs. The Doiron enhanced version of "Voice in Headphones" is worth the price of entry alone. But ya, if you're not a Mount Eerie fan boy, you could probably skip this one.
Dawn(11.2008, PWE&SUN)
Verdict: It's not a half hearted cop out for cash, really.
When I first heard about the upcoming release of Dawn I was rather skeptical. Dawn is an acoustic/vocal collection of all the songs written during Phil's mysterious Norway self exile days. Until now the bulk of these songs have appeared in one form or another live or recorded, but never in a complete collection. To my great joy Phil has done these songs justice (some of which are my favorite he's ever penned) in stripped down form. Phil's brand of gently layered acoustics and humble crooning create one of the most intimate and lovable Mount Eerie releases thus far. Plus "I Say, No" is quite possibly my favorite Mount Eerie song ever, so it's nice to have a version of it that resembles the live rendition. Oh, and keep an eye out for a book version containing all his journals from the era later this year. Pretty nerdy.
- Wooly Mammal
Mount Eerie on Myspace
No comments:
Post a Comment