Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer

I had a hard time writing last week’s Animal Collective review. I think it’s because I’m not used to thinking critically about music. I told Jessie I was having difficulty and she asked me if I liked writing these. I had to think for a second… Yes – I love music and like thinking/talking about it. No – since I started doing this, I don’t listen to the music the same way. I now try to work up sentences in my head while the music is playing to start thinking about what to write. I got Dragonslayer by Sunset Rubdown several weeks ago now and have deliberately not thought about how to write this. I have been too busy enjoying the album.

The 00’s were a great time to be a music fan. As the decade progressed, more and more ways to hear new and different music were introduced all the time. Whatever your opinion on filesharing is, it made it possible to hear anything and everything you were curious about or interested in, which is good. It can be perceived as stealing, which is bad. It can introduce someone to a band that will cause them to spend money on a ticket to see said band, which is good. Filesharing and the digitizing of music also caused a few things to happen. First, albums are now chopped up and downloaded (legally or not) song by song. If I wanted to, I could go to iTunes and find almost any song I wanted to and download it for something like $0.89 to $1.29, or I could go to RapidShare or someplace similar and get a whole album in about 5 minutes. Second, musicians now know that if they don’t put out a quality product people will know via leaks, which always happen well before the physical copy is released, and will have plenty of time to decide whether or not their music is worth spending money on. These things, plus others have led many people to declare that the album as we know it, especially in CD form, is on its deathbed. Sunset Rubdown is here to show everyone that the album is alive and well. Dragonslayer is everything an album should be, a collection of songs stylistically and thematically cohesive and thoughtfully ordered (I’m still disappointed with you Phoenix).

Sunset Rubdown started out as the solo project of Spencer Krug who is best known for his work with Wolf Parade which is a little less sprawling and more confined. I really like the way he sings (in a speak-sing sort of bark, similar to David Byrne of The Talking Heads). Dragonslayer is probably the type of music you would imagine: long songs, lyrics about “ancient ways”, slow building climaxes. It’s a little prog-rocky (so my father-in-law, who likes Yes should like it), but not overly so. I don’t think it ever goes too far. I love this album so much that I cannot stop listening to it. Since I got it, I have probably listened to it 4-5 times a week on average.

The album opener, “Silver Moons” starts off with the lyric “Confetti floats away like dead leaves in the wagon’s wake”. I love the imagery of that sentence and the syncopation of the delivery when it is sung. Another great lyric in that song (or at least the way it is delivered): “I believe in growing old with grace, I believe she only loved my face”.

“Silver Moons”

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Track three is probably my favorite (I know it is my kids’. They love to sing along. “Anna Anna Anna Oh!”)

“Apollo and the Buffalo and Anna Anna Anna Oh!”

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The album is only eight songs, and the last one, “Dragon’s Lair” is over ten minutes. It is an amazing and very satisfying way to end the album. I won’t put the song up here, so if you like the other songs you should buy the album. The song right before it, though, “Nightingale/December Song” is another favorite of mine that helps build the tension and pace of the album. Another great opening line: “So let me hammer this point home!”

“Nightingale/December Song”

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So, since I procrastinated writing this and it didn’t turn out exactly the way I hoped, in short: this is good. Move over Grizzly Bear. Album of the year!

Interesting side note: Spencer Krug is in a lot of bands (Sunset Rubdown, Wolf Parade, Frog Eyes). Another Canadian who is in a lot of bands, Dan Bejar (Destroyer, The New Pornographers), is in yet another band with Spencer Krug called Swan Lake. Swan Lake released an album called Enemy Mine earlier this year. That album had a song called “Paper Lace” which is on Dragonslayer in a different form. That song has the lyric “come run with Jackie”. Dan Bejar has written New Pornographer songs called “Jackie” and “Jackie, Dressed in Cobras”. Did Dan Bejar introduce Spencer Krug to Jackie? Who is Jackie? Why does she have so many songs about her?

Dragonslayer

5/5 stars. It will be extremely hard to top this year.

I should give credit to another blogger at this time. I would have never listened to Sunset Rubdown were it not for Vague Space. The guy who authors that talks about them all the time and other bands I like (Pavement, Bright Eyes) He writes about a little bit of everything (politics, sports, music, tv shows, movies). I am really only into his music stuff, but there you go if you are looking for another site to read.