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One Fresh Spin, One Old Gem
By Marc Stephens
Fresh Spin
Artist: The Most Serene Republic
Album: Population
Released: Oct. 2, 2007
Label: Arts & Crafts
Verdict: 2007’s most challenging yet rewarding album
The Most Serene Republic hails from a quirky and
overrepresented subset of indie rock that, for the
most part, remains hopelessly enamored of
unsyncopated 1990s Pavement/Primus-style noodling —
the preponderance of which leads absolutely nowhere,
and plays discomfiting havoc with the nerve endings
to boot. But now, with this record in hand, we may
at last trumpet the glorious exception. What makes
Population resonate so wonderfully is its
innate melodiousness: The Most Serene Republic has
somehow managed to reach past the dissonant
post-rock effluvium to create what may be the most
harmonic, complex and aurally pleasing release of
the year.
Much like Plus/Minus’ 2006 masterpiece Let’s
Build A Fire, Population assumes a
marvelously diversified approach to indie rock — one
blending unexpected time changes, angular guitar
work and hypnotic boy-girl vocals into a listening
experience so utterly cohesive that the end of the
record seems to arrive without warning each time
it’s played. The Most Serene Republic certainly
isn’t averse to sonic contradiction, tweaking its
music with tranquil and explosive passages almost in
tandem from song to song, and even verse to verse.
But Population’s versatility should by no
means signal weakness either. Nearly every track
features layer upon layer of instrumental and vocal
complexity, uniting in force to propel the listener
along like blood in the veins; the best example of
this would have to be “The Men Who Live Upstairs,” a
sprawling, driving contender for Song of the Year.
Yet, perhaps most surprising of all are the soft
piano and keyboard interludes sprinkled throughout
the record, which along with the album’s stirring
imagination lend it a symphonic quality guaranteed
to keep your thirsty ear coming back again and
again. I’ve listened to this record at least 50
times now, and have yet to find the bottom.
Old Gem
Artist: Elmer Bernstein
Album: Heavy Metal — The Score
Released: Aug. 7, 1981
Label: Bootleg/Unreleased
Verdict: One of the all-time underrated film scores
Generally speaking, I’m neither a soundtrack nor a
classical music kind of guy; when it comes to great
orchestral film scores, my list would pretty much
fit in one hand, including Ben-Hur, Maurice
Jarre’s Witness and, of course, 2001: A
Space Odyssey (I have a thing for waltzes). But
not to be outdone, Elmer Bernstein — the composer
justifiably credited with some of the finest film
scores of the 20th century — also makes the roster
with what may be his most thrilling and underrated
piece, from 1981's animated sci-fi epic Heavy
Metal.
The film itself is a widely respected cult favorite,
an 89-minute hallucinatory teen fantasy rendered
virtually indelible thanks to its garish, blatantly
phallocentric animation. I have absolutely no idea
what might have inspired the revered Bernstein to
assemble such a masterpiece of orchestration for
what basically amounts to a fevered, nonsensical,
drug-fueled flight of fancy — though Heavy Metal
did represent his first animated film, which might
perhaps explain his subsequent dedication and
meticulous attention to detail. Bernstein’s aching
subtlety and acute sense of the moment come through
on nearly every track, particularly the flagship
“Taarna” segments, which manage to sound mythic,
rip-roaring and spiritually haunting all at the same
time. Best of all, being orchestrated music,
Heavy Metal sounds as fresh today as upon its
release — unlike the patchwork rock soundtrack,
populated by the big “pop-metal” names of the day
(Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick, et al.) and notable
today mainly for nostalgic value. But don’t think
I’ll make your auditory life easy: Heavy Metal’s
score was never “officially” released, though
bootlegs do sometimes show up on eBay or
file-sharing sites. |
