Cursive - I Am Gemini

Cursive have, to me, never been post hardcore. Ever since The Ugly Organ in 2002, I've heard people label them as such but I've never heard it in their sound. Domestica might have been post hardcore, I could see that. The songs were raw, the lyrics were emotional and were screamed as often as sung. Since Domestica though, Cursive have strayed further and further from that genre. Organ saw Cursive doing their best to keep things fresh, and people applaud the album because at the time they had a cellist in tow, but at the same time they've been almost lauded ever since because after the cellist left they refused to replace her, instead opting to adopt a brass ensemble. To be honest, which I tend to be, Cursive have become a better band with almost each new release in my eyes. Domestica and Organ struck me as spotty and gimmicky, as well as poorly planned, though they do both have exemplary tracks. Happy Hollow has been a favorite of mine for a while - it's like a melting pot of nasty riffs and picking on Tim Kasher's part - who, by the way, happens to have one of the best voices (and sexiest beards) in the industry - alongside a brass ensemble that just seems to push the knobs to over eleven or twelve. It was one of those first albums that really made me feel like time was rushing past me. 44 minutes felt like 20 in 14 tracks. Mama, I'm Swollen managed to keep me impressed and intrigued, and it's also a great album, but it just barely doesn't beat it's direct predecessor. What was interesting about Mama was watching Cursive advance as a group again - this time not by growing by numbers, but instead by growing by ideas and shrinking by numbers.
Another three years have passed and Cursive have released their most bare bones record yet, I Am Gemini, but it's also their most well thought out. Gemini is the first time Kasher has made a concept album on purpose. If you would note, every other Cursive album since Domestica has been a concept album, but not necessarily by purpose. The situations in the lyrics were always told from separate characters views, and the subject was always only the same because it was something that Kasher felt passionate about himself, so much so that it was all he felt the need to write about (or, that's my assumption). Following his divorce, Kasher wrote two albums based around the during and aftermath. Being raised in a catholic school, Kasher then wrote two albums about religion. I Am Gemini isn't about religion, or divorce, or anything that we, as listeners and viewers, can see apparently from the basic details of Kasher's life. The concept is, instead, a story that was thought through from the very start to finish, and it makes sense that this would be the next step for Cursive, especially since now that Kasher has got the adolescence out of his veins he can seriously broach an idea, as we've seen from the other screenplays he's written the past few years.
Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that? I Am Gemini comes as a playbill. As in, it was written for the god damn stage. If you don't know yet, the album follows twin brothers Cassius and Pollock - one an ex-con trying to run from the past, the other a recluse, who has been left undiscovered his entire life. There are quite a few twists and turns in the story and I won't be the guy to spoil it, but here's what I will say: the story is filling, just like the rest of the album.
However, upon starting my first listen of I Am Gemini, I actually found myself quite disappointed. I don't know why, but none of the songs caught my attention at first. It took me a months time to calm down and remember that bands develop for the better to really come back to it and appreciate that Cursive's new release is actually their best yet. A fully thought out concept, and that along side the songs - which grow (This House Alive, Eulogy for No Name), which are tense (Warmer, Warmer, The Cat and Mouse, Wowow), which are destructive (A Birthday Bash), which are hoppin' (The Sun and the Moon, Twin Dragon/Hello Skeleton) and which are fierce (Drunken Birds, Double Dead, Gemini). The album is all around surprising, especially in how Cursive have grown as musicians, and how they've developed their dynamic on song writing. Kasher manages to pick on be insane on most songs while bassist Matt Maginn - who shows how truly badass he is on this release - syncs up with percussionist Cully Symington to bash the fuck out of every song as if they together were a blunt object. I do really applaud their musician ship. I haven't heard a bass and drum duo so well thought out and so in tune with eachother since Morgan Henderson and Mark Gajadhar of The Blood Brothers - who happen to be a post hardcore band. And all of this while rhythm and keyboardist Ted Stevens acts as the centerpiece - providing the themes and really, sort of connecting all the pieces to each song.
That's right. After years of intense conceptual pieces, yelling but not screaming, and being god damn catchy, Cursive have managed to piece together what I can truly call a post hardcore album. And it does the genre justice. These ideas are classic, and yet they are unique. I feel familiar with them, and yet my body wants to dance how it has never danced before. Cursive have proven once more that they are a band whom posses more character, more creativity and more excellence than most bands applauded in the scene today, and for that I thank them. I thank them dearly, for being consistently surprising and different and new while at the same time not terrible. I thank them dearly for being themselves, and for fucks sake, I thank them for thinking.
Tier: 2 [Playlist]
[Gotta get those forty winks]
[Introducing: Cursive's I Am Gemini, starring Cassius and Pollock]

Children of Nova - Impossible Landscape

I'll get to the Mars Volta. Don't worry. For now, though, I think it's appropriate that I share some lesser known and yet impossibly talented bands first. Children of Nova are a lot like The Mars Volta and The Dear Hunter. They're a modern progressive rock group, and they're also quite well associated with the post-hardcore scene. The difference is that both Volta and Dear Hunter had their roots in post-hardcore because they were birthed from it - those groups At the Drive-In and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart were good for a reason - while Children of Nova are a bit backwards. Children, instead of being either one genre or the other, basically just pushed both of them into each other, seeing as though they're so alike.
From the start you can hear it. Erratic houses some great opening "wake the fuck up" shredding, and introduces us to our vocalist - who, along with the atmosphere the band puts off, will definitely remind you of other groups, like Casey Crescenzo and Claudio Sanchez. This might be their debut album, but Children of Nova pulled out all the stops. They're out to really perfect sounds that we've already heard. "Moments of Clarity" feels like a perfect Muse song. "First Signs" is the song you put on when you're driving in a space ship towards the sun in a last wise guy attempt to save the world from a meteor that you just left Bruce Willis and a bomb on and your fiance is crying in a space station in NASA, but just before you run into the sun, you dawn your master chief armor and jump out the back with a bomb in tow, then you just figure, "fuck it" and point yourself like a needle towards Earth. And it works.
If at any one time a track doesn't keep the flow moving, it's "Silhouette". This song basically just kind of falls in on itself. Every album needs a soft song, I guess. Even if it just brings the flow of the album to a dead stop and makes us forget why we liked anything in the first place. However, something great about modern prog rock is that our bands today really know how to close an album - just look anywhere. Porcupine Tree and The Volta have been doing it for decades now, and Children of Nova are no exception. On "It's Just a Ride" they pound back into your skull that they are fucking. bad. ass.
Tier: 3 [Good Shit]
[the Russians have got nothing on this]

Pulled Apart by Horses - Tough Love

When Pulled Apart by Horses released their debut self titled LP in 2010 I missed them. However, plenty of friends compared them to The Blood Brothers, who have released some of my favorite albums ever.I don't really see the likeness on their sophomore LP, Tough Love, but that doesn't mean I don't like it. Pulled Apart by Horses don't have two screamers, and their one vocalist doesn't have a squeaky croon a la Johnny Whitney, nor does he have a buttery twiggy kid swag voice such as Jordan Blilie's. What he does have, however, is a strength which stands on it's own and in a unique way. I would even dare to say that Tom Hudson's chords are what dictate the overall sound of the band - the way they can take glam rock sort of pedals and effects and make it sound like something new from a genre that isn't very new at all. This is innovation.
And I appreciate it. These guys seem to be really down for getting on the ground and performing some real rock and roll, the way the kings made it. Classic techniques, formulas and all. And the catchiest parts of the album - the chorus to Epic Myth and the general being of Night of the Living - make this not only the first post hardcore release of the year, but the first album of 2012 that I find myself really moshing out too.
And Tough Love only tires when those dire cries and rockin' chords become a bit less various and a bit less filling - everything between Night of the Living and Degeneration Game could do with better hooks and maybe a revamp of sound and energy to keep the album going, to keep it fresh. Even then, though, the album finishes with a bang. I can see myself nine months down the road still rocking to this stuff.
Tier: 2 [Playlist]
[what does V.E.N.O.M. stand for, anyway?]

Pianos Become the Teeth - The Lack Long After

I am a fan of post hardcore. I have been a fan of post hardcore ever since I first heard "Crimes". I'm actually listening to "Yes! Yes! Yes!" by Foxy Shazam while I write this review.

Aside from this, though, I have never been terribly impressed by Pianos Become the Teeth's releases. I felt sort of let down after hearing how good Old Pride was and being just plainly let down when I first listened to it. And that's a normal feeling - I was also let down all this year by my first listening of both of La Disputes albums. The only reason I've ever found for me to dislike a post hardcore album, really, is that nothing is different, or changing. They remain at a constant pace, no change, and the exact thing I'm hearing is always some same chord progression, or gimmick that I heard on the very last album I put on.

This is why I initially thought I would be pretty disappointed with Pianos newest album, "The Lack Long After". I wasn't hearing a lot of difference in the songs - neither lyrics or performance were really strikingly well played, which is normal for bands of this genre, and they seemed to be playing at constant, angry, numbing pieces.

The difference, however, is in the little things. In each track I can hear layer of playing - especially prevalent on songs such as "I'll Be Damned" and "Spine". Pianos Become the Teeth have learned to do a lot with a little. They make you appreciate every note, every change. The best part is that it's a consistent release, with every song playing at the same level, making you revel in the whole thirty-eight minutes that you listen, and when you've finished, take a big breath of air and nod to yourself - and possibly to them - in acceptance. Or maybe even say, "Wow."

I can't really call any track weaker than another, but a big problem this album has actually comes from it's consistency: deciding on only eight tracks. I'm sure this meant the album was more of a serious endeavor, and that there was less room to disappoint, but it also means the songs are all very long strung, which is okay, except for when I'm looking for something to listen to and enjoy on the go, like I can Touche Amore's "Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me", another release from just earlier this year.

But I'd take a consistent album that's good for sitting down and just listening to over something quick any day. With strong riffs, real emotive vocals (though they may have risked diction getting there) and enough variation to make eight long tracks seem like nine short ones, Pianos Become the Teeth's "The Lack Long After" has given me a few good reasons to order it.

9.1

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