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The all-inclusive, ever-changing, and uncomfortably flexible guide to all things music in the 2010's.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The Love Language - Libraries: B+



Arcade Fire. You know how you sometimes hear certain albums come out that the media and people immediately associate with an artist who have achieved far-reaching past glories, forever to be affiliated with a sound that one assumes they will never truly transcend or improve upon? Tallest Man on Earth and Bob Dylan? Oasis and Beatles? Well it seems that very rumor mill is revving up for Stuart McLamb's pseudo-solo group, The Love Language, to pin the group with the sound of that artist I named, above. On his newest album, Libraries, I hear that influence from that band once and only once. The piano stabs that later turn to orchestral stabs in the album's opener, "Pedals", are startlingly reminiscent of Arcade Fire's "Intervention", but that may just be because few other artists have utilized that type of technique in musicianship, and, regardless, it is one that works to great effect.


If anything, Libraries sounds like Paul Weller if he took some Vicodin before entering the studio. Never have I heard such playful melodies coupled with such a smarmy English brogue (and the guy's from North Carolina! Who would've guessed?). Libraries plays out like the perpetual slow dance of a senior prom this generation never really experienced; all swinging balladry and blissful chords that waft by you like a summer breeze. As anyone can guess, a full album of this kind of music can get on one's nerves, and, to a certain extend, it begins to wear; after all, one can only slow dance for so long before nausea sets in. However, thankfully, Libraries is just short enough to whet your pallet for the ethereal and long enough to leave you blissful, light-headed and satisfied for the rest of the day.

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