was re-up to MEGA.
Showing posts with label Elliott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elliott. Show all posts
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Friday, August 03, 2012
Elliott – If They Do EP (1999)
Just to show there were no hard feelings with its original label Initial Records, and to hold fans over until the release of full-length False Cathedrals in the summer of 2000, Elliott released If They Do (along with the companion single ("Will You" on Revelation) in the spring of 2000. "If They Do" is a 7" single on vinyl, with two new songs, "Waiting While Under Paralysis" and "As Arson." The CD version, however, turns into a 30-minute collection, with two previously unreleased tracks left off of the 1996 EP In Transit. "Lost Instrumental" delves into a lost art in rock, the instrumental, and "Halfway Pretty Acoustic" is, as it sounds, an acoustic version of "Halfway Pretty." The original In Transit version appears alongside another cut from that EP, "Watermark High," which best represents the band's powerful melodic hardcore.
While the album is a bit disjointed (the songs recorded together don't appear together), and nothing can duplicate Elliott's awesome live presence, If They Do fits nicely into any indie rock collection.
allmusic.com
Elliott – U.S. Songs (1998)
During their brief career, Louisville's Elliott released three albums of original material and a final, posthumously released, live studio album. Although talented and hardworking they never really achieved a huge amount of commercial success, possibly because they refused to fit neatly into any one genre. Their debut, U.S. Songs, is almost melodic emo, but it's also a little alt-rock, and maybe a few other things besides. They also lean toward a more abstract lyrical style, which suits the mature, pleasantly aloof feel of the music, but offers no easy or immediate focal points for the listener. It all fits together perfectly, though, creating a superblytextured sound which reaches from oh-so-easy drifts to crashing waves. Yes, it takes a little effort to fully delve into the record, but the surface alone is so considered, so obviously well arranged, that the process itself is warm and welcoming, new insight born in every repeat listen.
Above all, U.S. Songs is an album about the often ignored, deeply tangible border and relationship between melancholy and bliss. The clarity of Chris Higdon's voice provides an ethereal, introspective quality to the imagery of the words, as they quietly float above the sweetly dulled guitars which bring "The Conversation" to life, or the delicate, calm eye within "Alchemy as a Rhythm". In stark but beautiful contrast to these lulls, Higdon often presses his voice to the very edges of a shout, no more so than amongst the pounding, expansive chords of "Safety Pin Explanation", and it's this constant swell and recede which brilliantly evokes the complexity of human emotion – the secret, unspoken pleasure at the heart of sadness and regret, the taint of anger and frustration in the very fabric of joy. Like all esoteric, abstract art, U.S. Songs is about ideas that can't easily be explored, feelings that defy simple definition; but, crucially, Elliott provide an elegant, dreamily melodic backdrop to their thoughts, making them all the stronger and more meaningful.
They may have failed to find an extensive audience, but in this way at least, they truly succeeded.
sputnikmusic.com
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