Bella Union
So many things bother me about this three song single, that it's hard to imagine having this many conflicted feelings about so little recorded music. For starters, Lift To Experience wear the fact that they are from Texas on their sleeve the way some Texans sport "Don't Mess With Texas" bumper stickers on their Chevy trucks. Look, I'm from Texas too, but you don't see me out eveyday with my Texas Ranger badge on, and I don't start every record review with "even though I'm from Texas, I found this record quite interesting." The constant Texas posturing seems awfully condescending to all the folks from Texas who, like LTE, were more turned on by shoegazy indie rock than square dancing, knee slapping hootenany, and it's equally condescending to people who like squaredancing, because there's nothing wrong with that either! There are plenty of folks in Texas who can rock a good Cocteau Twins record anyday, we don't need LTE to remind us. A line about the band's Texas heritage even surfaces in the single's title track, and whether its supposed to be tongue in cheek or not, it just drags the credibility of the rest of the song down for me. The vocals alternate between painfully earnest choruses and half-spoken, disaffected verses reminiscent of Arto Lindsay or Lou Reed. The music in the background is sincere enough, kind of like what you might expect from people thrown into a culdron of indie rock, Country twang, and the Bible Belt. It was genuinely securing a grip on me when I opened the CD liner notes to read "Ladies and gentlemen we are playing with one guitar." Look again, it's really not necessary to point out something like that in such a way unless you are trying to make a point about how important or strong or incredibly unique your music is DESPITE the use of only one guitar. Maybe it's all part of a humor too dry for me to get into, but it sounds a lot like when popus jackasses like Rage Against The Machine say things like "we didn't use any keyboards or computers on this record." Frankly, I've heard a band with only a drummer and a bass player make more dense music than Lift To Experience, so the "one guitar" thing isn't doing much for me. Tracks two and three were recorded live for SBN, and have a live band sound, but as much as I like the songs, I can't keep the image of amped up Texas machismo out of my head. "These Are The Days" is a genuinely enjoyable single with a bonus video that gives you an up-nostirl view of the band performing that is at least worth a glance. If you can look past all the "Beers, Steers, and Queers" style Texas 'humor,' and take the band less seriously than they take themselves, you might find that it's a pretty damn good single.
So many things bother me about this three song single, that it's hard to imagine having this many conflicted feelings about so little recorded music. For starters, Lift To Experience wear the fact that they are from Texas on their sleeve the way some Texans sport "Don't Mess With Texas" bumper stickers on their Chevy trucks. Look, I'm from Texas too, but you don't see me out eveyday with my Texas Ranger badge on, and I don't start every record review with "even though I'm from Texas, I found this record quite interesting." The constant Texas posturing seems awfully condescending to all the folks from Texas who, like LTE, were more turned on by shoegazy indie rock than square dancing, knee slapping hootenany, and it's equally condescending to people who like squaredancing, because there's nothing wrong with that either! There are plenty of folks in Texas who can rock a good Cocteau Twins record anyday, we don't need LTE to remind us. A line about the band's Texas heritage even surfaces in the single's title track, and whether its supposed to be tongue in cheek or not, it just drags the credibility of the rest of the song down for me. The vocals alternate between painfully earnest choruses and half-spoken, disaffected verses reminiscent of Arto Lindsay or Lou Reed. The music in the background is sincere enough, kind of like what you might expect from people thrown into a culdron of indie rock, Country twang, and the Bible Belt. It was genuinely securing a grip on me when I opened the CD liner notes to read "Ladies and gentlemen we are playing with one guitar." Look again, it's really not necessary to point out something like that in such a way unless you are trying to make a point about how important or strong or incredibly unique your music is DESPITE the use of only one guitar. Maybe it's all part of a humor too dry for me to get into, but it sounds a lot like when popus jackasses like Rage Against The Machine say things like "we didn't use any keyboards or computers on this record." Frankly, I've heard a band with only a drummer and a bass player make more dense music than Lift To Experience, so the "one guitar" thing isn't doing much for me. Tracks two and three were recorded live for SBN, and have a live band sound, but as much as I like the songs, I can't keep the image of amped up Texas machismo out of my head. "These Are The Days" is a genuinely enjoyable single with a bonus video that gives you an up-nostirl view of the band performing that is at least worth a glance. If you can look past all the "Beers, Steers, and Queers" style Texas 'humor,' and take the band less seriously than they take themselves, you might find that it's a pretty damn good single. samples:
Read More
