Bearded Alive with Eskimo Eyes..
So the band formerly known as The Microphones are back with a new album, first one since Mount Eerie in 2003, which I sort of had mixed feelings about it didn’t really have the lo-fi POP genius about it the way The Glow Pt. 2 did. I emphasize POP because The Glow Pt. 2 did contain some excellent pop songs until half way trough the album when it kind of just drones out, I really think Phil Elvrum, the mastermind behind it all, just gets bored with writing pop songs and really wants to challenge the listener, and challenge it does, needless to say when I listen to my old Microphones albums I bounce around a lot.
Well No Flashlight is all a new beginning for Phil, the first behind the guise of Mount Eerie, and so far I don’t know what to think, I read two reviews and both put the album at different ends of the spectrum. Tiny Mix Tapes rate the album as an essential, while Pitchfork today thinks relatively the same of this album (quantitatively) that they do the latest Oasis release. I have only heard one song from the new album in which I am posting here and it begins with much of the same that we have seen on the last album, a wave of percussion and universe theme, he loves talking about how small we actually are, even standing at the base of something as grand as Mount Eerie, its still small when thrown next to the grand universe.
The other track I’m posting is, Great Ghosts, a track Phil recorded as the last project under The Microphones name, it comes of a live album that also got sort of panned in the reviews, but this song, proves to me that he is a much better vocalist, and songwriter than anyone will ever give him credit for. Yeah, its sort of emo singing about being haunted by old wives, but man he sounds sooo tormented. Anyway one of my favorite songs…EVER!