Word: pianos
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...album begins with “The Code,” a fuzzy and futuristic spoken-word track. Toward its end a melody enters, melting into the album’s first real song, “Dream About the Future.” The track opens with a piano meditation on the same two chords, layered with drums, the band’s characteristic synthesizer, and quirky sound effects. Frontman Schneider soon interjects, “When I tell you that I need you / You don’t believe me.” Achingly whiny and painfully clich?...
...career, this development has uprooted his lyrical subject matter from the glitzy side streets of Chelsea and launched him into the vague and airy realm of love, loss, and remorse. His musical range has been correspondingly streamlined from the likes of synthesizers, horns, strings, and drums, to a simple piano...
...unalterable step towards a kind of maturity, it is also a regrettable one. In growing more earnest, some of Wainwright’s compositions have reached a previously unexplored height of emotional and intellectual resonance, an important part of which is Wainwright’s commitment to the piano. More saliently, however, the overwhelming sentimentality of this latest album has blunted the artist’s edge and overshadowed his great musical talent...
...fantastic, wistful, and yet powerful tone, Wainwright here describes a kind of loss that avoids the lure of saccharine self-pity. His imagery, of an earth “lumbering on” and of galactic dreams, is sweet and clear without being cloying. After a brief and discordant piano part, Wainwright ends the song by belting, “I truly loved / Which is harder to do, yes it’s harder to do / Yes it’s harder, harder, harder, to do / Than to dream of.” The repetition of the word...
...Many may listen to it once, find nothing of interest, and discard it. But that will be their loss. Whether it’s the Kinks-like tongue-in-cheek third-person storytelling of “Song for Dan Treacy,” the Berlin-era, Bowie-esque piano instrumental “Lady Dada’s Nightmare,” or the seeming dozens of stylistic shifts through 12-minute album centerpiece “Siberian Breaks,” the album is full to bursting with fascinating compositional decisions. It can be overwhelming...