Review Summary: A departure from their first album, Do Make Say Think focus harder on their experimentations with their jazzy post rock sound in Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead.
Do Make Say Think is a transitional band, and their second LP,
Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead, is a testament to the transitional aspects and the dynamic layering herein.
Far more focused than their self-titled debut,
Goodbye Enemy Airship.. sweeps, glides, and hops around. The band’s instruments consist of guitar, bass, percussion, keyboard, horns and whatever samples they might have. For the most part, this album is standard post rock: dynamic shifts in volume, progressive shifts in structure, and (usually) standard rock music instruments used for non-rock purposes. However, DMST backs their music up with blues-ey or jazzy rhythms. The songs range from four minutes to thirteen minutes in length, so the length of the songs alone may turn some (most) people off. But for someone who wishes to sit and listen to well-structured, perfectly-timed transitions, catchy-as-hell guitar riffs, and foot-tapping percussion would be satisfied with
Goodbye Enemy Airship..
The best transitions feel like a dam’s flood gates are opening and a rush of watery music hits your ears. The explosion of music in the first track
When Day Chokes The Night is preceded by a couple of minutes of build-up, foreshadowing, and then the explosion of horns and guitar.
Minmin and
All Of This Is True are a couple more tracks that contain this great quality.
Bruce E. Kinesis is one of the two tracks that don’t follow all the rules. It’s got an incredibly bass-heavy beat, sound sampling, and a spooky electric organ, plus it’s the shortest track at four minutes. The other track is
The Apartment Song; it’s four minutes long, but the guitar and drums ares post rock-y tinged with some blues. The title track starts off good and becomes even better halfway through, but when the ratio for [substance:time] is used, the track doesn’t really deliver all that much. Amazing drumming throughout though. Thirteen minutes of hittin’ those drums really fast; good thing they have two drummers.
The two stand-out tracks are
Minmin and
All Of This Is True since they both offer great transitions and layering. The pinnacle, I feel, is in
All Of This Is True when horns are layering and becoming louder and faster and suddenly stop.. the drumbeat continuing and fading out… That’s the image of
Do Make Say Think: fading into the music, letting it engulf you as it clears your mind and relaxes you.
Pros: Excellent rhythms, great transitions and layering
Cons: Length of some tracks, redundant at times
Stand-out tracks:
All Of This Is True
The Apartment Song
Minmin
The Landlord Is Dead
