Complete Discography vol. 2

With the Complete Discography series I will examine how my favorite albums actually made their way into my life and the impact they had. 

Complete Discography Vol. 2 – The Fire Show’s Saint The Fire Show

I stumbled into love with it.  I first heard about it in a review of a completely different record (United States’ actually pretty good Retail Detail) and on a whim I went over to amazon to see if I could find it.  Someone was selling it for a whopping 27 cents so I went for it.  I wasn’t expecting much.  It had been a while since I’d bought an album sound unheard and I was looking forward to simply experiencing something for the first time by actually putting the CD into the player and letting it go. 

Aching / outrageous /on the glacier’s translucent  / sun-lit resplendence

The opening accapella came through my speakers and I think my internal temperature dropped to 95.6.  The vocals sounded like they were recorded in an abandoned ballroom and they just hang there by themselves like the smoke off a lit sparkler leaving an impression and then floating away as a few small chimes, and hints of bass filter in and make their presence felt.  The vocals are doubled, contorted, piled on until it all explodes into a furious mix that falls away in a gently undulating mix of noise and rhythm.  It’s an entrance, that’s to be sure. 

on a clear day the jets are so much louder / louder/ louder/ louder

There are a lot of things I could say about the compositions that make up this record.  They are layered, dense, intricate, usually on the verge of falling apart but they some how always find a way to stay afloat.  I could break out the big guns in terms of musical comparisons and talk about how the guitars have a little Public Image Limited buzz to him, how the tape manipulation hints at This Heat and the lyrics are pure narcotic cut and pasted like the best of Burroughs, and that above all, this album is the soundtrack to all of the best fever dreams you’ve ever had but those things don’t really matter, this record has a life of its own.  Nothing really sounds like Saint The Fire Show, and no band truly sounds like The Fire Show on any of their three records. 

annihilation as easy as a shot between the ear phones / a life without a dictionary

For me, this record was a grower in the worst sense of the term.  I liked it when I first listened to it, I thought it was challenging, I thought it was well made and it was good enough to get me to buy the entire Fire Show catalogue (Self-Titled, Above The Volcano of Flowers) within a week of hearing it.   But it was just another record I liked, I didn’t neccessairly relate to it, and honestly I didn’t really want to because in order to relate to it based solely on the sounds I was hearing and the tone of the record some really terrible shit was going to have to happen to me. 

these speeches confirmations of inevitable lies/ these speeches confirmations of inevitable lies leaving questions/ questions/ questions I have/ questions I have/ questions I have/ questions I have/ questions

In July of 2007 a tumor was found in my father’s left lung.  My family was told that it was going to have to come out regardless of whether it was malignant or benign and his surgery was scheduled for early August.  Once it was done the doctors had told us that everything came back good and he was cleared of any forms of cancer.  A few weeks later he was complaining of nausea and stomach pains and we were reassured once again that it was more than like a simple ulcer as a result of the surgery so he was given some medication.  When the nausea and pain increased after a week on the medication a CAT scan was finally performed revealing cancer found in his intestines, stomach, lymph nodes and brain.  He was given two months to live. He only made it two weeks. 

blue scarf / alcohol / red blood / common cold / saint anthony and temptation / saint anthony and temptation / saint anthony and temptation

I will always remember the way I felt when I had to tell my sister that our father was going to die very shortly.  I will remember she and I crying together probably more vividly than any other part of the entire ordeal that lasted a strange three months that saw us tense up and release so many times only to be terribly let down in the end.  I remember coming home that night from my sisters place and listening to this record on my headphones, it helped in the way that knowing there was something out there that can kind of aurally sum up exactly how you feel helps, its not much but it’s all you can really expect. 

A boy smells like restless girl with all these useless romo cravings / armor piercing plastic arrows rekindle years of callow resignation

Saint The Fire Show is catharsis.  It’s an exodus of any and all feeling from the body.  The song “The Rabbit of My Soul Is The King of His Ghost” is very literally a song about losing a father relatively young and I think I listened to it nearly 50 times over the course of the next week.  It more than anything else seem to capture the anger, the powerful, unfocused, frustratingly vague anger that was coursing through me for nearly a full month after all was said and done. 

I paralyzed now I was promised a halo/ and wings/ but plastic is cold to the touch

This is not a perfect record.  There’s no such thing.  But there are some absolutely glorious moments on it.  The radio-wave samples that swoop in at the 3:15 mark of “Dollar and Cent Supplicants” only to be taken away by two quick looping samples that usher in the bass drenched opening synth lines of “The Godforsaken Angels of Epistemology”.  The delicate little string arrangements underlying that song, the small little glitchy static beat that runs through the opening of “Useless Romo Cravings”, the backwards speak-singing that sounds so much like speaking in tongues that makes up the entirety of “Brittlebones”, all of these tiny little moments just put to light the feel of the album so fully and completely.  The closer that turns “You Are My Sunshine” into a dirge puts a perfect cap on it all and you’re left sitting there, sweating, emotionally exhausted, and relieved.

i had currency / now i only have money/ i had currency / now i only have money

I’m not trying to make a huge case for Saint the Fire Show being the best album you’ve never heard.  In fact if most of you out there listen to it you very well might not like it, probably 29/30, but for that 1 person left in that grouping something will click and they’ll be left with a very special record unlike anything else in their collection.  And it just might help you out when you really need something no one seems to be giving you, candor and relief.

~ by bgosling on August 19, 2008.