Review Summary: Love flares. Also, nobody dies
Actually, what the Get Down Stay Down has done here is, in fact, raise Thao
up. And Thao is beautiful. I had no idea who she was or where she was coming from, but her performance here had me viewing her as some kind of prophet. Her voice is pristine: airy and light enough to waver, but with just enough rasp to remind you it's all coming out of a throat. This combined with her perfect, yet effortless enunciations conjure up a kind of dizzying hyper-clarity that would likely overwhelm if it wasn't so goddamn bright, engaging, and beautiful.
Thao does her thing, and the Get Down Stay Down is on all sides of her, accenting her every sway on the most specific levels. Every song is completely distinct, as their sounds are pieced together as collective, precisely timed bursts, rather than just continuations of a couple specific rhythms. The only recognizable thing about opener "Astonished Man" is the straightforward (but no less irresistible) vocal hook: behind that are numerous different accents, including the synth bass that kicks the song into its first verse, the ghostly guitar strums floating above that give the verse its symmetry, and the bowed guitar at the chorus strummed so unabashedly it really might as well be a sitar. The album never stops being lively, some might even say "cartoony," so it may initially appear as some kind of sunburnt pop experiment. But it's not burnt to black, just to that visionary level of delicious, digestible weirdness. And ironically, it's this flamboyance that lends legitimacy to everything Thao is saying. Some scraping metal percussion is what opens "Slash/Burn," and with some off notes, no less. It provides a unique perspective on the subject matter: the unavoidable, yet unmentionable pain one is stuck with after a lover chooses to leave and never return:
"I'll break the back of the old days/I'll wake from sleep to watch you stay/Look at my posture, how I sway." The vocal melody is rather eerie as well, like a nursery rhyme, but the kind that's whispered to oneself repeatedly in the madhouse. "Nobody Dies," the album's "anthem" anthem, rides beautifully on a wet, scuzzy guitar line that actually differs pretty starkly from the album's poppier moments, but especially stark from the song that comes right after: "Guts," that token lounge ballad. It's a deliberate step down to sparseness, but you know from its very first piano ring that the hyper-clarity hasn't gone anywhere.
Thao may be the one getting down and not staying down, and she may be the one on the cover, but let it be known that the title of this experience is
A Man Alive. She says it in "The Evening," one of the album's most radio-ready moments:
"All this time/A man alive!/How I have grown/How I leave home." But it's clear from the beginning that these songs are about things we all know, and the words are a whole smorgasbord on their own. They're snarky without biting too hard, and at times can be alarmingly simple without pandering for a second. Sometimes they're just off-the-wall, as in "Meticulous Bird," which is basically a hip-hop song:
"I resent the invention, listen, listen, pay attention
I know the science of the fiction of conviction of the henchmen
I am here for the masterminds!
They told us that you sold us,
Oh my, oh my, oh my god, you didn't know I'd get ferocious?"
This kind of I-based tirade can get tiresome if not handled properly. Thao is spunky and sings like no one's listening; she handles it properly.
Of course, none of this is to say that the album is trapped in a wishful bubble. It only makes sense for
A Man Alive to have its share of scathing, check "Fool Forever:"
"See my city in the city lights/Scratch the belly of the underside/Oh, mighty man of war, how we tether together/I know you'll make a fool of me forever." Some booming, tinny drums and weirdly specific synth notes intensify the song's epiphanic hopelessness. But after all this detailing - well, likely because of all this detailing - the real beauty of a
A Man Alive lies in how the entire album feels like an epiphany. There's no psychedelia per se, and it keeps the transitions seamless, and ensures that the messages stick. It's another one of the album's feats that it creates such an intoxicating, esoteric atmosphere without really dipping into overt experimentalism. It's like a dream; you're dancing and laughing and crying while the whole time Thao is waxing poetic on things you always think about, but in ways you never thought to think.
And this is where it leads, the ultimate epiphany: "Endless Love," one of the most wondrously effective closers I've ever witnessed. Those
"a la las" at the chorus sound suspiciously like
"all along," don't they? The song just moves back and forth from verse to chorus unassumingly, until it "peaks" and begins to smolder. But this rigidity in structure is no downfall at all when the words are
"I got an endless love no one can starve, I got an endless love/I don't want it, I don't want it, carve it on out of me." Something else about the song that's impossible to ignore is its unbelievable lightness. We got some bass, drums, and Thao. Then that glorious "peak" at the end made up of about every sound under the sun. How heavy is this love? Who cares, when no one can starve it?
I am alive. Thao is alive. The Get Down Stay Down is very much alive. And if you are alive, this album should make you feel something. The love may be endless, but why go on a hunt when it's been bottled right here, and preserved for your listening pleasure? Get up and come get some.
any favorite tracks? 
