How Lonely Sits the City promises to lend its voice to the rising anthem of question, progression, introspection and budding ideals of a new generation of individuals and artists.
It isn’t the blatant ass kicking anthem of ’70s punk rockers, or the emotive lull of the ’80s. It’s light years beyond the murmur of innovation that always felt like it should be just around the corner in the ’90s.
This new anthem is complicated, and takes 54 minutes, 10 seconds and five tracks to be enunciated. It begins with a slowly building guitar buzz, and ends with children’s laughter. It’s instrumental and experimental; sure to be post-something, but these days it’s too hard to tell post-what, so we’ll let it slide.
HLSTC sets itself up as a political piece, from the liner notes to the audio outtake of Mario Cuomo’s speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention in the fourth track, “A Threnody (For the Victims of November Second).” But it’s a truly beautiful political piece, with dissonant crescendos fueled by distortion melting into all the lovely, sad touches of the cello, piano, violin and xylophone.
Although the music is lyrically impressive, the droned out vocals that sometimes take the place of an instrument don’t always seem to be the best fit.
Also, the introductory build in the first track, “Alas! Alas! The Breath of Life!” was so quiet that for the first minute and six seconds, until the guitar and strings start to say something, it’s hard to tell there’s anything going on at all. Conceptually it’s a gorgeous introductory segue, but realistically it would be nice to actually hear it instead of sitting for a full minute in what sounds like silence on an average system unless the volume is up louder than it will need to be later and you are paying rapt attention.
I feel dirty saying anything bad about a freshman offering with such great depth, meaning and shining potential from a band who seems to have nothing but the most benevolent intentions of ushering us all out of the current state of political arrest and into a compassionate future.
The Ascent of Everest leaves us with a sweet note in the third movement of “If I Could Move Mountains.” The build is all the more engaging, coming down gently as the violin giving way to a chorus of voices which leave us finally to the sounds of children playing.
Don’t worry guys, we’re coming along.
