in return

I seem to be reaching the end of my metal listening hiatus, which has lasted a surprising 3 or 4 months. While the general "metalness" of Torche could probably be debated, they lie at least on the heavier end of whatever spectrum you're using. It's probably best for me to stick with posting music in this range anyway, because I doubt the 5 people that read this are deeply invested in the arms race of extreme-ness that metal conversations inevitably polarize to.

If there were an extreme this song approaches, it wouldn't be aggression or really even heaviness. Among the cross pollinated shoegaze guitars and rolling floor tom thunder, a kind of acquiescent beauty emerges. This song is a white flag, post frustration, 5th step on the Kübler-Ross model blaze of emotion. I recognize linking to the 5 stages of grief is melodramatic, but I think we can all agree small psychic storms occur from time to time and as the Red Hot Chili Peppers so eloquently phrased, "music is my aeroplane." So maybe the next time the world begins to wear on you, you can find some palliative comfort here.

Torche - Bring Me Home

here's to you, kilgore trout

Time is a funny thing, we can follow our daily routines for weeks, even years; caught up in complex patterns of behavior that for the most part map out our experience of "time," but those moments still come when the concept of time passing just doesn't make sense. We see the world around us aging, our own bodies changing, fairly concrete examples of this experience - but everyone also knows the strange flash of realization that the month is over or the year is over, and for some reason it doesn't feel like thats completely possible. Einstein elegantly distilled one explanation of this experience, by presenting time as relative to the speed of light; though my favorite illustration of it was a documentary I saw on TV, where natives of Papua New Guinea were filmed talking about an upcoming soccer game. The game was to be played by people on teams from opposite sides of the island, one side had been converted to Catholicism and wore western clothes and lived in white framed houses. The other side still lived in the jungle, were practically naked, and the calendar someone had scratched out on the jungle floor to show them how many days it was until the game had some of them doubling over in laughter. I was a little jealous then of their outside perspective, to see the hilarity in our struggle to divide up our whole existence so neatly.

Having said that, now a word about this Bob Dylan song. Its from a bootleg called Deeds of Mercy that I picked up somewhere, including songs from around when Oh Mercy was released. This particular song was actually officially released on Under the Red Sky, but that version I find pretty unsatisfying, (see for yourself). Anyways, the bootleg version has a much more introspective atmosphere and the lyrics are much better in my opinion. This song is one that can trancend nosalgia under the right circumstances; such as when I listened to it last night, driving my truck under the haloed moon through silver fields of new grass, time actually seemed thinner. The night sky could have easily been the one I gazed at when I was seven or fourteen or anywhere in between.

So here is your soundtrack to becoming a little looser in time, enjoy!

Bob Dylan - Born In Time