Review Summary: My life's a cup of sugar I borrowed before time began and forgot to return.
mewithoutYou –
Catch For Us The Foxes
There’s a thing about music that I’ve always known but never really
known, like knowing that there’s someone beyond the door in the horror movie but not having any logical reason to think so; for music to truly be amazing the musician has to put their soul into it. If music never reaches that inner level of intimacy, where the listener is not only hearing the notes, but is seeing the performer’s soul in the music, then can it really be called amazing? I would say not. Of course, many will ask why I am going on and on about music and souls when I should be talking about mewithoutYou; but I think it’s important to understand why mewithoutYou’s music is so amazing, and it’s because the band puts their souls into the pieces they make.
Catch for Us the Foxes is mewithoutYou's 2nd full-length album, and one of the most extraordinary pieces of prose, soul, and song ever put together.
Aaron Weiss is really the man behind the curtain on this, and every, album that mewithoutYou has released. As people like to say, Weiss brings this X-Factor to the music that makes the band go from something really good (because, even without Weiss mewithoutYou is still a good listen) to something with power and emotion, not just through his lyrics, but through his deliverance as well. For most lyricists it is sufficient to recite lines like a poem over instruments, but Weiss differs in this aspect greatly: his voice becomes an instrument, weaving and twisting throughout the album with grace and such meticulous thought put into each line that it’s almost staggering to ponder how he is able to create such a delicate and powerful connection between the words and the music. Tracks like
Torches Together and
Tie Me Up! Untie Me are perfect examples of this beautiful accord between the music and the lyrics; in
Torches Together a rhythmic pounding of drum and bass coupled with a very simple guitar lick lay a base that Weiss’ words dance upon. As always, these lyrics are fantastic, often being personal stories put into metaphor, such as
January 1979, a song supposedly concerning Weiss’ own birth; however, in these personal tales there’s pieces and bits that can be related to and easily understood, such as Weiss’ own criticism of himself and what he feels is his gluttony and selfishness:
After years with a crown on my head I’ve grown
Overfed, unconcerned, and comfortably numb,
Kept busy indulging in the pleasures of the wealthy
(Someone make me afraid of what I’ve become!)
Or
Tie Me Up! Untie Me!’s laments of love and its ups and downs:
She's like a hot cloth on a fevered head,
And like a needle she leads me (while I follow like thread)
Tie me up! Untie me! All this wishing I was dead is getting old,
It’s getting old!
It goes on but it’s old...
Of course, there is the stigma associated with Weiss’ faith in the music; being a Christian, perhaps his lyrics would gravitate towards God and leave a secular listener to not really grasp or truly appreciate the song. However, Weiss’ ultimate appeal is that he is able to be listened to by anyone because his songs are not evangelistic ravings, but personal confessions; you won’t hear Weiss singing praises to God on high on this album, although he does slip in a few Biblical allusions here and there, such as in
My Exit, Unfair in which Weiss’ name-drops Jonah specifically, or
The Soviet’s first line:
God is love and love is real, and the dead are dancing with the dead.
But these Christian undertones shouldn’t turn off any anti-Christian or non-believer; Weiss doesn’t try to push his faith on the listener, but rather use it to express himself.
If all I talked about was Aaron Weiss, though, I would do no justice to the rest of mewithoutYou. The instrumentation, while not as rough and straightforward as on
[A→B] Life, yet not nearly as varied and elegant as on
Brother, Sister, showcases a beautiful mixture of the two; hammering drumbeats are infused in every song, with an almost African feel to them in places because of their simplistic yet commanding rhythm, such as on
Torches Together. Rickie Mazzotta (the drummer) plays not necessarily sparsely, but doesn’t play overbearingly and extravagantly, yet this bare drumming, often based around just snare and bass with perhaps a cymbal rhythm, provides an excellent foundation for the songs to be built upon. In fact, if this album were to be redone with a drummer without the notion of simple-is-better it wouldn’t have the same power to it, and definitely not the same beautiful textures that the drumming does create.
The album’s melodies and progressions often feature a simple, repeated line on one guitar while the second adds either a more ambient or less prominent pairing chord progression or melody; it does good to have the two guitars following two different lines, often with different rhythms, because it helps to create a distinct flow and sound to each song, such as
Tie Me Up! Untie Me!, with one guitar playing a sparse, almost staccato line while the second provides a heavily-layered and delayed background chord that sounds almost like an ambient shimmer behind the more rhythmic guitar line. Michael Weiss and Christopher Kleinberg are both excellent guitarists, and complement each other very well, especially during the musical interludes where they truly show their prowess in creating rich, moving layers of sound, like the end of
Disaster Tourism, or the beginning minute of
The Soviet, which also showcases a very typical bass progression for bassist Daniel Pishock. One could never claim Pishock to be the next Victor Wooten, but at the same time he, like Mazzotta, brings the perfect balanced bass to mewithoutYou; he is very controlled with what he plays, though he never does get a true chance to shine, except perhaps on
Leaf, where the bass is very prominent and actually quite excellent throughout, especially on the pounding chorus. Of course, the album is a very rhythm focused album, so the bass is obviously an all-important piece, and luckily Pishock understands his role very well, never playing over another part, yet never playing so sparsely as to make the song feel as though it were missing his presence.
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As I said before, for music to be spectacular it has to have the soul of the artists in it; a song without such emotion is just another useless study in repetition and formula. But, by the grace of whatever higher being you want to suppose exists (or science I guess for you atheists),
Catch For Us The Foxes is an exemplary album of soul and music in perfect synchronization, each song conjoining with its neighbors to create a deep tapestry of emotion and passion. MewithoutYou have truly created an album of overwhelming depth and density of message and melody that stands alongside
[A→B] Life and
Brother, Sister as a testament to the sheer talent of these men, Aaron Weiss in particular, at evoking in ourselves emotion and empathy through their own personal reflections and musical creations. Those who wish to study technique and theory will not find much to hold their interests on this record; however, those who seek to allow themselves to move past the idea of technicality defining quality and really listen to what the music says, feel the passion of the band, and become entranced by the beauty and outpouring of spirit and soul into the music need look no further.
5/5
