Round 19 - La Dispute - Wildlife - 2012
A screamo album for the more emotive, La Dispute's Wildlife tackles the issues of an aging Rust Belt town putting its decline to poetry as seen through the eyes of their lead singer, Jordan Dreyer. Tackling issues from abandoned churches, people leaving, youth discarded or lamented, sex, mental illness, and media reportage of Afro-American violence as seen through a distant yet omnipresent narrator's ears and eyes, the album isn't afraid to tackle the personal nor the sociopolitical as personal. Just a remarkable album. Heavy screaming abounds. Easily one of the best punk/hardcore albums of the aughts, and listed in decade enders everywhere for punk/HC. If one ever wondered whether one was alone, herein we find dilapidated buildings as a metaphor for a loss of self or soul and one can consider these lyrics, from the first song and link about an overgrown parking lot and decay of a church on Easter:
And just the other day I swear I saw a man there
Pulling weeds out of the concrete, sweeping up and patching cracks
I saw him lift a rag to wash the years of filth from off those windows
Made me wonder if there’s anyone like that for you and me and
Anybody else who broke and lost hope
St. Paul Baptist Missionary Baptist Church Blues
Safer In The Forest/Love Song For Poor Michigan
Edward Benz, 27 Times (Live - BEST RECORDING)
King Park
And I haven't heard from Flop, so...
Round 20 - Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel - 2019
This needs to be on an island somewhere. Five Irish guys come out of nowhere to put out a stunning rock record in 2019. Indeed, the young men in Fontaines D.C. contemplated a great album that would chronicle the modern city of Dublin like Joyce did in Ulysses. They set out to make a grand, earnest recording of contemporary life through rock n' roll, and have, in this age of cynicism and irony, done so. Trying to keep pace with the growth of Dublin regarding everything from the social to the political -- both domestic and international in the wake of liberalization of their social politics to international Brexit angst -- they pen gem after gem. It's all-encompassing at times. Everything is there, from the post-punk (though not in the true sense, it's really rock) vibe to the stunning lyrics, often like this.
Dublin in the rain is mine
A pregnant city with a catholic mind
Slick little boy with a mind of Ritz
Pulling that thread for the next big fix, this
My childhood was small
But I'm gonna be big
or, about a cabbie during a political conversation
Spits out Brits out only smokes Carrolls
And so it goes, track after tack, not-so-obvious in observation, yet always wit with witness.
I think I got a great steal with this one, too.
Big
Too Real
Liberty Belle
P.S. Did I mention their next record is said to be Beach Boys-inspired in both harmony and tightness? Per the band's own admission (lofty goal stating).
*swoon*
FIN
Lauren
