Prelude

O.k., I swear I’ve been meaning to write a few lengthy articles here, but things have just been slipping away from me lately. I have been actively preparing a few things, though, and hopefully will post them all soon.

In the meantime I just checked Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s MySpace and discovered the best news of the fall – Oct. 7th will see the release of two albums: Animal! and not animal, as they call it. I’m super excited for both. Not animal actually has more songs that I’ve been dying to have recorded versions of (“Broadripple,” “As Tall as Cliffs,” “The Ocean”), but Animal! will also be great, I am convinced. I’ve seen plenty of crappy YouTube videos of new songs and have remained skeptical, but seeing the new songs performed live recently (in person) really blew me away. Sure, they weren’t all as instantly catchy as “Vampires in Blue Dresses” or “Quiet as a Mouse” (“German Motor Car” definitely IS as catchy, though), but the new songs showcase an increased musical depth and lyrical, well… psychosis may be the most fitting term. It all adds up to a bizarre, Tom Waits-meets-Anathallo-meets-Indiana sort of vibe, which is hard to quantify but sounds like nothing else. “At the Carnival” and “Love Song for a Schuba’s Bartender” creep along like black smoke, while the aforementioned “German Motor Car” has the most radio-ready opening they’ve performed before devolving into something else entirely, and “My Baby (Shoots Her Mouth Off)” is reminiscent of twothirtyeight’s “The Bathroom is a Creepy Place” (at least in its live incarnation), and we all know that sounding like twothirtyeight is never a bad thing (don’t we?).

I have now used far too many parentheses in this post. More soon.

P.S. - Animal! will be released only on vinyl and digital download, while not animal will be released on CD and digital download. Apparently that's how you solve a game of tug-of-war with your record label. Win-win for the fans!