Getting the Spinanes.
Alien Bob Dole and Bill Clinton don't know what it means to spinane towards freedom.
We’ve all been busy of late, I’m sure, and that means a lack of posts. These day are the college student’s most difficult: the final days of fall term. Especially in colder climates, the challenges are numerous. Living is hard when the temperature makes only brief spikes above the freezing point, and the labors of work become all the more laborious. It’s a good thing I’m not a college student, and I’ve spent the past week or so in much warmer, slightly more sunny California, doing nothing but enjoying life.
Now that I’m back in the northeast though, and there’s nothing like the cold and my high school home make me think of the past. Like the album “Arches and Aisles” by (the) Spinanes. I found it one day when I was in my local library, not having ever looked around in their CD collection before. Organization was an afterthought to their configuration of albums, so naturally, I proceeded to judge the albums not by the artist, but by the album art–hues of green and vague designs of flowers. I guess I was in that kind of mood that day. That’s how I started my relationship with “Arches and Aisles,” and it’s one of the (increasingly few) lasting relationships I have from high school.
If it weren’t for the sound of the album, though, I probably wouldn’t be talking about it now. The opening track, “Kid in Candy,” is a pretty catchy number with pretty tricked out percussion for the mid to late nineties. The lead singer, Rebecca Gates, fits the kinda breezy-voiced female vocalist that I took to those days, and I continue to find myself drawn to. Her voice seems to have a smooth reverb attached to it, but it’s probably the way her voice naturally sounds (which could be disconcerting when talking to her in person). The instrumentals are sparse in mid-nineties tradition, but the instruments seem well thought, and are carefully placed to create maximum effect. Overall, there’s a good amount of cool that comes from the album.
It does have a few duds in the middle of the album, and it does lose a considerable amount of energy towards the end. But the song, “Heisman Stance” is a good song, and it’s the high point of the album in a fairly unique way. It’s a song that eternally questions, and strips down the instrumentals to a series of calls and responses. Really, it embodies all the concepts presented in the previous songs in the most essential way possible. It doesn’t mean that it’s a song that I’d listen to again and again, as it’s slow and seems to resist the hookiness present in the early part of the album, but I definitely appreciate it.
Put all together, it’s an album that sounds like it knows what it wants to be, even in it’s seemingly indecisive pop/anti-pop attitudes. It just seems like everything is there as it should be, whether bouncy or melancholy, hooky or meandering. There will be moments like now in the future–the times when I am slightly uncomfortably cold, yearning for even a college final to grab onto, and I know I’ll search for this album and listen to it. Overall, it’s not something that I’d consider musically great; it’s just too inconsistent. I think ultimately, though, the greatness, and the reason why I come back to this album so frequently has nothing to do with music or consistency. It has to do with attitude, and “Arches and Aisles,” though eternally cool, has it in abundance.
Greetings from the Sugar Lick - Spinanes (YSI)
Love, The Lazee – Spinanes (YSI)
