Reviewed by:
ofreena, on november 12, 2008
0 of 0 people found this review helpful
Sound: While this album is fairly repetative, every song is brilliant. I'm not saying that because it's a favorite album - it's not. I'm not saying that because he had a big recording studio to back him - he didn't.
Once you insert Firewaters sixth CD, entitled The Golden Hour, a video pops up, you press play. Instantly, a very foreign infused music starts playing, and Tod Ashley starts to tell you about how the CD begun. He says he left America because he was sick of seeing George Bushes face everyday, and wanted to see the places he was destroying. He wanted to walk from India to Turkey, and collaborate along the way. India and Turkey are 2, 816 miles or 4, 531 kilometers apart!
Armed with a computer to record with, he went city to city, going to the cheapest hotels asking how he could start dance parties. He said he wanted something like a bellydancing party, with no bellydancers, and no singers. Just the music. "Its kind of like hiring the Rolling Stones and then telling Mick Jagger he has the day off."
He says it was incredibly chaotic, but most musicians took opium. Since there was a lack of communication between Tod A. and the musicians, he feels it helped improve the record in an authentic way, and that the whole experience was well worth the trip.
The CD is called the Golden Hour because of the time of day when the sunset happens, and the sky turns golden. // 8
Lyrics and Singing: No offense to Tod A, but I feel that the lyrics sort of fell through. Once you have named a song after a time of day, "6:45", or given it a cleche song title like "This is My Life", you automatically have 2 awesome points taken away. So now you are left with 3. However, with the anti-Bush song called Borneo
"Well I ain't gonna live in your world no more
(Hey, Borneo)
Yeah feeling like a funky two-bit whore
(Here I come, Borneo)
Got a monkey for a president
(Hey, Borneo)"
I'll give him an extra point.
The lyrics and the music flow fine, I just don't overall like the lyrics. They do flow well however, and Tod A has a realy nice voice. Smooth and rough at the same time. Reminds me very much of the Modest Mouse lead singer. // 7
Impression: This Firewater album sounds like a mix of new Modest Mouse such as "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" and Jesse Cook's live album "Montreal", but it is individual in it's own real ways. Best songs are Borneo, Electric City, Six Forty Five and Three Legged Dog. I love how authentic this is. He didn't hire some people he found in local ads, and he didn't go through people he knew. He actually went to the places that the real musicians he wanted were. Props for that. I hate how there aren't many back vocals. Honestly, it would probably take away for most people, but I'm a backround vocal person. I love the backround always. If it were stolen, yes I would buy it again. There's no other artists I know that sound like Firewater, and I love his style. // 8
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