Word: stringings
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...release is a conceptual drift through the experience of their titular hero, a disconnected observer who feels more than he lets on. And in the delicate construction here, the band proves the same is true of itself. Messner aches with lush compositions that expand both BFF's sound (string arrangements accompany their trademark piano/bass/drum combination) and their identity. Sure, "punk rock for sissies" was a fun label for their often-silly post-kitsch nods to pissed-off ex-boyfriends and love-struck goofballs, but it hardly accommodates the stylish, lingering sway delivered here. The grandiose sweep of "Narcolepsy" leads into...
...Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger returns with a14-track album about being either lost or on the go. It is fed with the Byrds, Simon and Garfunkel, Steve Miller, Devo, the Cars; it is dished out with lush harmony vocals, broad keyboard textures, generous acoustic guitars, rich percussion tracks, even string, and delightfully subtle twists of sounds. Fountains of Wayne are hip, well-bred and deft at slinging pop culture saturation through suburban rockers, witty ballads and sincere lovesongs with equal flair. The lyrics are sometimes distant, but that does not detract from an album of tightly-crafted...
...charming as beetles really can be) whimsical photograph of three insects flying kites. (The kites are also other insects, which suggests darker connotations to "having fun.") The tension throughout the book between terrestrial and aerial insects is successfully addressed in this photograph through the device of the kite's string, which acts as a unifying force between the sky and the sand...
...tune guitar that's missing a string, and sometimes, late at night when my roommates have closed their doors and gone to sleep, I take it out of its case and prop it on my knee. That's when I write my 2 a.m. ballads, my mostly wordless, atonal compositions that require fewer than three chords. To call them "songs" would probably be too generous. They have no sharp beginning, and I stop whenever my fingers start to hurt or I get too sleepy. If you walk down Dewolfe Street late at night, listen carefully for an off-key strumming...
Playing toilet ball, like strumming a five-string guitar, must be its own reward. We do it because we love the feel of grass under our feet, the smell of lilac in the air. We play because we know that with only a month left until graduation, the marginal utility of an hour spent studying is less than that of an hour spent playing outside. We kick the tender two-ply tissue because it makes us laugh. We retrieve it from the bushes because somebody has to. We love it because somebody has to. We love it because...