Right. Have had my listen through with music and lyrics and wine and good headphones and it's definitely somewhat the wine talking but this might actually be their best album. It's also really fucking easy to forget that James Murphy does 95% of the music, which makes it wildly more impressive, because he really only sings live. But he's doing the vast, vast majority of the percussion, guitars and synths. Could work out that way in the end. Now onto the track by track review with all small caps.
oh baby 8
interested to hear from lm what he likes so much about this one. i wonder if it's the same as me. first few listens, i thought yeah this is nice as hell, but it's also a bit plodding and takes forever to get going, if it does at all. like why the fuck did they pick this as an opener? but that's the thing about LCD sometimes... they suck you in. this is an absolutely beautiful song, and i would argue, one of the best pure love songs of recent times. i connected deeply with this, as i love my girlfriend a lot and she has night terrors (bad dreams) sometimes. i think what this song also does well is let you know that James Murphy is in this 1000%, it sounds so fucking genuine and immediately wipes away all fears that this comeback was misguided. just a full-hearted love song that builds and releases too. amazing.
other voices 7
the 6 is an 'LCD 6', so for other artists would be a 7. the shit cooks, but there's always been these fast-paced but somewhat pedestrian tracks on LCD albums: One Touch, half of their pre-s/t tracks, Time to Get Away. The best part for sure is the "please / if yr coming home" verse, which is backed (and followed by) Fripp guitar from Another Green World. The Eno influences are everywhere, as they have always been. ACTUALLY FUCK IT, when Nancy comes in that shit deserves another point. 7. wicked AF.
i used to 9
the percussion on this song alone is reason enough for this album to exist, particularly when that synth bloops come in 40 seconds in. i wish there were more lines in the verses, cos they sound so wicked, but a very minor complaint. just a fucking slow, sly, motherfucking monster this track. and fucking dark, too. this album is fucking dark as fuck.
change yr mind 9
as iyup said above, 70s bowie. James has done Berlin Trilogy Bowie for fucking ages (Get Innocuous) but this is the best he has done it by miles. Get Innocuous is beat-led, whereas this is full of the tortured guitar that lords over Low and "Heroes" and Lodger. i'm extraordinarily tempted to give this song a 10 because i have waited day and night for a record that features the sounds and textures of "Heroes" (the album) and this song probably comes closer than anything i (or LM, who I've also had on the case) have ever heard. it is a fucking sensational song, this one. lyrically, i wonder if this is about the comeback; he announced it in january 2016 but the album didn't get announced til july 2017.
how do you sleep? 10
everyone loves "dance yrself clean", and with good reason, but this track is like dance yrself clean in a fucking way darker space. the percussion absolutely cooks for ages, building and building, with strings added as well and this absolutely incredible far-off vocal from James that actually does sound like he's on a shore and then 3 minutes and 38 seconds in the synth comes fucking slamming down and then about 90 seconds of more buildup later it's all guns blazing. lyrically this is another one that i wonder speaks to Bowie - "you warned me about the cocaine / then dove straight in" - but it could be anyone. but i really think Bowie's spectre is all over this record. it doesn't haunt it, but it certainly informs it. anyway, i cannot wait to hear this song live. and i think one of the measures of whether this comeback should exist should be "are there songs off the new record that i would happily have replace old tracks in the setlist?" and this song answers that question affirmatively.
tonite 9
i have no idea how LCD managed to make this song sound so fucking retro. this could very, very easily be a forgotten offcut from a proto-electro 70s album, but it's here as a bonafide single. a banger, as i've said. the last two verses of this song are also tremendous lyrically, from one line to the next, combined with the way that the music and has vocals pick up pace before diffusing over a huge beat. just sensational. the last lines in particular:
still making mistakes that you thought you had learned from
...
you've been badgered and taunted and told that yr missing a party that you'll never get over
you hate the idea that yr wasting yr youth
that you stood in the background until you get older
but
that's
all lies
call the police 8
probably the only track that for me sounds at times a little ham-fisted. i can't stand the elongated intro, and it takes a solid one and a half minutes (when the guitar comes in at the end of the 'moving to Berlin' line) to really start hitting its straps. as i've said before, this is a U2 song, and if U2 came out with it, i'd be over the goddamn fucking moon, but not quite LCD. but then it starts getting going and you get swept up in the majesty of it. the guitar is fantastic, the lyrics are really quite cutting and insightful and actually relevant - the 'call the police' refrains at the end are actually aimed at conservative culture war fuckwits. and the searing guitar at the end of the choruses is sensational. FUCK IT, i'm bumping this to an 8 for the lyrics, the last four minutes and the ending is dope as hell ("they're gonna eat the rich!!")
american dream 10
this song is actually a fucking marvel. holy shit do i fucking adore this song so deeply. it was my favourite of the double a-side from the start and it has proved to be an even better song the more you listen. again, it has those huge synths that are found on Bowie's 70s work (this one in particular is a 'Low' song) and it has this incredible dichotomy between the synth-waltz underpinning it and the interstellar pull of the vocals and the chorus synths, which manages to tug the heartstrings with great fervour too. again, i wonder if this is another Bowie nod - "he was leather and he was screaming (even the way he sings these lines actually sounds like Bowie at times) / you couldn't know he was leaving / but now more will go with age you know" - but the other striking thing about this song is that it can also be taken as a very small, grounded song, just the point of view of a downtrodden man who is looking for some solace, whether it be acid in the morning or just the heartbeat of cacophonous music. (also added points for the "oh the revolution was here / that would set you free from the bourgeoisie") just a fucking tremendous, tremendous song.
emotional haircut 7
this album's "drunk girls" and "watch the tapes" - the guitar-led, fast-paced in-and-out banger. and yet unlike those tracks, it still hits you with emotional resonance in the form of the lines iYup mentioned above. "you got life-affirming moments in yr past that you can't repeat" is a fucking heart-tearer, in a song that both is (getting a haircut to tie yourself to a certain time) and isn't (fastpaced rocker) an emotional song. it's an extremely significant line; if you took "All My Friends" and tried to distill it into one line, that's what you'd get. also, this song fucking cooks, so there's that. gonna be sick fun live.
black screen X
this one was so unexpected for me. the first few times i listened to this album, i did so without lyrics, but this was the one song that also struck me as carrying significant emotional heft. and i think the mark of a great, heartpulling song is one that hits you without you having sat with the lyrics. it's completely unique in LCD Soundsystem's catalogue; the droning is different to the droning songs they've done before, as it's so gentle, and lasts so much longer than any of their slower songs (the only long-lasting LCD songs prior to this all have a pulse - Yeah, dance yrself clean, beat connection, etc etc etc). again, we get Berlin-era Bowie synths throughout, but this time they're punctuated by the heaviest vocals that James Murphy has EVER committed to tape; usually in the past, in LCD's most emotionally resonant tracks, there was always something at stake and you could hear that in the vocals (All My Friends, Home). Someone Great is this track's closest cousin, but it too still has far too much momentum to compete. again i wonder if this one is talking about Bowie, but even if it's someone else, it still cuts through so hard for seven straight minutes, it's a heartbreaking lyric, and yet, you can get through it, because James Murphy takes you with him. it's a togetherness song. he sounds ~somewhat~ resigned, but it's that ~relative~ resignation that allows the listener to come along for the ride. the moment when Al Doyle's piano comes in at about the 7:30 mark is so beautiful, and then the last four or so minutes are, dare i say it, the most fucking beautiful in LCD's entire catalogue, Someone Great excepted.
so all in all i think this a fucking tremendous album and if i ever ANYONE ever say again that they're shitty about the LCD comeback after the elongated goodbye i will fucking flip my shit, because this album immediately dissolves all that. this album proves that this is just a band who still has a fucking awful lot to say. i think this is definitely James Murphy's most lyrically hard-hitting album, pound-for-pound, and i think the music around it gives it a further elevating quality.
i fucking adore this band and i hope i have expressed my feelings about this record and comeback well enough. xo
from me.
