There Will Be Fireworks – “River”

Singing loud enough to wake the dead, not enough now that you’ve left

There’s a lot of factors that go into making great music, and too often I believe we focus on the wrong things.  Intricacy and technical prowess can only get you so far; the best bands in the world aren’t the ones that shred the fastest, create the most complex drum fills, or experiment the farthest with electronics.  They’re the ones that can tap into our human side and appeal to our vulnerability, to serve as a reminder that we’re not alone in our experiences – whatever they may be.  Only a few bands have “it”, and There Will Be Fireworks are one of them.

For proof I’m going to look no further than “River”, the second track on the group’s surprisingly underground The Dark, The Bright – an album that deserved all of the acclaim in the world and for some reason got ignored.  “River” is not a track you can easily shake after hearing it once: it comes rushing in on the heels of “And Our Hearts Did Beat”, and you can immediately tell that the song can’t wait to explode. And it doesn’t take very long to indulge, either – just after the 1 minute mark, singer Nicky McManus belts out, “We used to talk, you used to have me round…I used to sing for you” and you can feel the desperation dripping from every word.  From that…

Florence + The Machine – “Shake It Out”

It’s always darkest before the dawn…

Sometimes I’m convinced that Florence Welch doesn’t get enough credit.  Commercially, sure, she receives due monetary cash flow for superb singles like “Dog Days Are Over” and this very song – but as a real, true artist, I’m not sure that many people are bringing up Florence.  She’s one of the most recognizable voices in all of music, booming with authority and quivering with uncertainty all at the same time.  The music accompanying her iconic voice has only gotten better with time, with her most recent album High As Hope sounding like it could have been a sister album to Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool.  Albeit, you know, slightly poppier.

Regardless, I’d presume that few users on this site would think to include Welch on a decade list, and that’s slightly disappointing (I hope I’m wrong).  Ceremonials was an absolutely breathtaking album back in 2011, and it remains one now.  As more time goes by, it inches towards become a classic of the modern indie pop canon.  Although the entire album unfurls with dark beauty, “Shake It Out” is a clear standout, serving as both an inspirational hymn of sorts as well as a radio staple.  The song has its fingerprints all over this decade, and it’s impossible to imagine a major music publication that wouldn’t at least recognize the song as one of the most wildly popular “alternative” tracks of the last 10 years.

All claims…

Bon Iver – “Perth”

For a project with as many lush, jaw-dropping tracks as Bon Iver, selecting a song of the decade to represent Vernon’s artistry was no easy feat.  ‘Holocene’ could have been selected just as easily as one of 22, A Million‘s electronically-infused gems – but nothing encapsulates the “Bon Iver aura” to me quite like “Perth.”  The song inhales fresh rivers and pine, and exhales with the rejuvenating rush of an avalanche rolling down the ice-capped Wisconsin mountainside. When I listen to this song I’m transported straight into the wilderness, which of course, is the essence of Bon Iver.

I think what really does me in every time is the transformation at 2:30 – where “Perth” goes from beautiful acoustics to stunningly regal, brass-laden post-rock.  I can envision rocks tumbling down the side of a mountain with fervor; clouds rolling across the sky in fast-motion; a blackened sky opening up, giving way to veins of golden lightning.  The song is pastoral in context but celestial in sound, an aesthetic clash of the tangible and ethereal that is all too mesmerizing.  If someone asked me to pick one song to introduce a friend to Bon Iver, I’d select “Perth” 10 out of 10 times.  It envelopes all of Vernon’s best qualities as an artist, leaving a jaw-dropping atmosphere in its wake.

Read more from this decade at my homepage for Sowing’s Songs of the Decade.

Foxing – “Lich Prince”

The date was August 10th 2018, and Nearer My God was at a critical juncture in its process of making a first impression upon me.  Opener “Grand Paradise” was shockingly off-the-wall, in a good way, but I wasn’t sure if it was an anomaly or a sign of even better things to come.  Then the more plodding “Slapstick” hit my ears, and I felt like it was unfortunately going to lean towards the former.  Even as the first couple minutes of “Lich Prince” passed by, I was unconvinced.  “Goddammit Rowan you overhyped this thing” I thought to my real-life self, not thinking about how weird that actually is, and then BAM!

I FEEL LIKE A HOOUUSE PLAAAAANT!!! *cue FUCKING EPIC guitar solo*

The rest is history.  The album continued and I fell in love with every minute of it; something I still credit to “Lich Prince”, as it hooked me right at the exact moment that I was on the brink of writing the whole thing off.  It’s weird how music works like that – sometimes our opinions of an entire piece can be molded by the timing of one song.  For me, “Lich Prince” was Nearer My God‘s savior, even though now I thoroughly enjoy every part of it, including the songs I once found boring or pointless.

Another thing I once found pointless were the lyrics to this song.  “I feel like a house plant”?  Really? But then I bothered myself to actually…

Beach House – “On The Sea”

I’m not a diehard Beach House fan, but I’ll always have a soft spot for what I feel like is one of the top albums of the decade – Bloom – and the gorgeous penultimate track that seems to have followed me throughout the key moments of my life.  It played in the car when I realized I loved the girl who is now my wife.  We slow danced to this song in a vacant parking lot under the stars on our first date.  Hell, it played at our wedding.  If there was going to be a Beach House song on this list, it was always going to be this.

Of course “On The Sea” is objectively one of the band’s greatest achievements anyway, so I don’t feel like a whole lot of detailed persuasion is even needed here.  But the way it bounces in on those rhythmically uplifting pianos and ever-so-gradually builds to a vocal crescendo is nothing short of breathtaking.  Lyrically, the sea is a metaphor for the afterlife – and the singer grapples with an appreciation for all that life offers, as well as the consequences of death.  The song wanes just as elegantly as it enters, fading into white noise like a ship disappearing into the night.

Listen to this song on a clear night, alone.  It’ll be one of your songs of the decade too.

Read more from this decade at my homepage for Sowing’s Songs

…

The Antlers – “Palace”

Few bands have shaped my musical preferences as strongly as The Antlers over the last ten years.  Burst Apart was gorgeously sinister, like curb-stomping someone to beautiful indie-rock.  Undersea had the transformative “Zelda”, which nearly stole this spot.  Yet, when I think of The Antlers, I can’t escape the memory of my first time hearing Familiars – and more specifically,  when Silberman attained angelic status on the downright otherworldly “Palace.”

Everything about “Palace” is perfect: the elegant pianos that shimmer during the introduction, the regal horns that join in, and the way that Peter Silberman floats above it all – weightless, as if he’s just a spiritual entity observing from afar.  For as serene as this song is, it definitely reaches an escalation point starting at the 2:30 mark, when Silberman’s smooth, apparition-like melody launches into full throat, and he delivers one of the most powerful verses in The Antlers’ entire doscography: “He left the tallest peak of your paradise, buried in the bottom of a canyon in hell / But I swear I’ll find your light in the middle, where there’s so little late at night…down in the pit of the well.”  The brass then kicks it up a notch as well, and you’re off – floating towards the horizon without a care in the world.  It’s the prettiest, classiest song I’ve heard in quite some time.

The best thing about “Palace” might be that it lures me into The Antlers’ beauty every single…

Jimmy Eat World – “Pol Roger”

Are you alone like me? Alone but not lonely…

The best bands aren’t necessarily the ones that write the most complicated riffs or have a pitch-perfect vocalist.  They’re the ones capable of, time and time again, delivering the equivalent of musical butterflies.  Those goosebumps you get, or that lump in your throat, when you realize that a song relates perfectly to an aspect of your life.  Jimmy Eat World have always been that band for me, and as recently as 2016, they’ve released an album that somehow manages to connect with every fabric of emotion inside of me.  That’s why I’ll fight for Integrity Blues as not only the best Jimmy Eat World album, but also one of the very best of the entire decade.

I had a hell of a time selecting one song from Integrity Blues to represent Jimmy Eat World for the decade, but “Pol Roger” hits hardest every time.  The beautiful thing about music is that you can always make it about you, and “Pol Roger”, to me, feels like one of the most honest tributes to self-contained happiness.  For the better part of my adolescent life, as well as my young adult life, I relied on others for happiness.  It’s not that I had an unfulfilling upbringing or anything, I just always felt an intrinsic sense of loneliness – like my life only carried meaning if I was somebody else’s “number one”; this ridiculous idea that I needed…

Alt-J – “3WW”

Every time I listen to “3WW”, I find myself drifting off into the same imaginary realm. I’m sitting by a large bonfire in the woods – an atmosphere alight with swirling shades of orange and purple – as sparks fly up towards the hazy evening sky and then lazily descend towards the earth, like tiny parachuting stars. The crackle of burning wood permeates the night air – this cool, crisp inhale of purity. It’s a feeling so vivid and proximate that it’s impossible not to become immersed; a touchable, palatable instance of emotional transportation – like camping out in another galaxy.

In a more literal sense, “3WW” is just a downright captivating piece of lo-fi indie rock.  Commencing with a thumping backbeat, gentle guitar plucks, and handclaps, it feels mysterious and warmly inviting all at the same time.  Joe Newman’s vocals have never been the driving point of this band, but here they are intertwined with Ellie Roswell’s (of Wolf Alice) which results in some beautiful chemistry akin to “Warm Foothills”, where English folk singers Lianne La Havas and Marika Hackman traded off every other word with Newman as part of a remarkable duet.  At its core “3WW” feels like art-rock, or art-pop depending on your perspective.  It seems to live in a giant metaphor – the title referencing the “three worn words” lyric which alludes to the phrase I love you, for which Newman and Roswell proclaim together, “I just want to love you in my own language.”…

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “Girl In Amber”

“Girl In Amber” is perhaps the most downturned, morose song on an album that is already tragic.  Skeleton Tree deals with the death of Cave’s son, who fell to his death at the age of 15 from the cliffs at Ovingdean Gap, while high on LSD.  On “Girl In Amber”,  everything is so bare and forsaken-sounding, which is perfect in the worst way for what he’s setting out to do – which is to bury his son musically and metaphorically.  “The phone it rings, it rings, it rings no more” and “I knew the world it would stop spinning now since you’ve been gone” are crushing lines.  You can almost feel him curled up in a dark corner, enduring so much agony that it doesn’t even matter to him what the song sounds like.  It’s just a bare bones expression of pain, accented by ghastly, apparition like aah‘s that will send a chill up anyone’s spine.  This is way more important than a fucking song.  This is Nick Cave baring his soul from the most rock-bottom moment of his entire life.  It almost feels wrong to derive any enjoyment from this.

Read more from this decade at my homepage for Sowing’s Songs of the Decade.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5JjmQsvmmmOBFnUjP7FLu4

Steven Wilson – “Luminol”

I often find myself thinking about how Steven Wilson – Porcupine Tree frontman and renowned solo artist – was born into the wrong era of music.  I mean can you imagine this guy making prog in the 60s or 70s?  It feels like he was transposed from those decades, thrust into the present through some accidental time warp.  But then again, as strange as it is to hear Wilson make some of the best 70s prog ever in the year 2013, it’s a reminder of just how fortunate we are.  I feel lucky to be witnessing one of the most creative minds in music – a wildly untamed talent – at his absolute peak.

And to me, that’s exactly what The Raven That Refused to Sing is.  Notice that I name-dropped the album there instead of just one song, because choosing from the six masterpieces on that record is an impossible task – so I went with the one I find myself returning to the most often.  “Luminol” is in essence bass-driven prog wizardry, replete with guitar solos, pan flutes, synth flourishes, lush piano reprieves, and Wilson’s sparse but angelic self-harmonizing vocals.  In “Luminol”, I hear flashes of just about every masterful prog band from before my time – only updated and blended together in a delectable whirlwind of vision and brilliance.  The song rises and falls, finding room to breathe between its many creative ventures; it feels as though it could have been its…