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music guy A road map to music utopia
So here's the deal: I'm the new music guy at Jayplay, Ben (that's what it says up there, at least). Each week, I'll be reviewing either a concert or an album from a band that isn't very well known, but should be. The bands I review will be based on your recommendations, so if you love a band that nobody else has heard of, send an email to me at jayplaymusic@gmail.com and who knows, maybe I'll write about them next week.
This week, because there are no recommendations yet, I'll be writing about one of my favorite (relatively) unknown bands. I'm open to almost any kind of music, so don't think that just because this review is about (ska-)punk rock that's what I want all your recommendations to be.
Streetlight Manifesto Somewhere In The Between
Right: Singer & Guitarist Tomas Kahnoky takes a step back from the microphone to play a solo at a recent show in Chicago. Above: Bari Saxophoner Mike Brown leads the audience in a punky sing-a-long at The Metro, a Chicago rock venue. Top: Brown's powerful playing and stage antics had no trouble keeping the audience's attention.
Let me start this review by explaining one thing; I'm a sucker for lyrics. It has never really mattered to me what genre of music it is, so long as it's well-written and the words get to me—which explains why I listen to Streetlight Manifesto. The brainchild of former Catch-22 frontman Tomas Kalnoky, Streetlight Manifesto's newly released sophomore album Somewhere In The Between manages to evoke memories of old Czech and Hungarian orchestras while simultaneously maintaining an alacratic and
energetic style that would be equally at home as the soundtrack of an insanely paced workout regimen as it would be in a mosh pit. Of course, it's this quality that has propelled Kalnoky and co. into the role of standard-bearer for a newly rejuvenated genre of music that was widely believed dead either right before or right after (depending on taste) Reel Big Fish's Sell Out topped the charts.
But what about the lyrics? The lyrics are, in my opinion, what really make this album stand out
from the rest. Kalnoky appears to have matured from his Catch-22 days of writing about girls and teen angst, and this album, to the best of my analytic ability, appears to be a introspective look at organized religion, morality and the afterlife. It's tough for me to pull out a single lyric that I find particularly compelling, in part because a lot of lyrics fall into that category, but also because many of the best lines, if taken out of context, could conceivably offend the more pious among us—something I don't believe was intended by
the author. In the interests of not offending too many people in my first week on the job (next week though, you're all fair game), I'll leave you with this tidbit from the title track:
“This is the alpha, omega, beginning and the end / And we all just idealize the past / So you were born, and that was a good day / Someday you'll die, and that is a shame / But somewhere in the between there was a life of which we all dream / And nothing
and no one will ever take that away."
10 01.24.2008 VOL 5 ISS. 17
Photos:
contributed by Ben Garmisa