mewithoutYou - A Retrospecive Revue

In anticipation of their new release (it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright), we at The Blah Blah have decided to do a review of one of mewithoutYou’s older albums. Less well known than Brother, Sister is Catch for us the Foxes, their sophomore release. In short, it’s more raw than their later album, and a little darker, but still very good and heartfelt.

It’s aggressive. Listening to just about any given song, especially “January 1979” and “Four Word Letter, pt2”, one gets the feeling of a man on a busy street corner, standing on a milk crate and shouting something so amazing and so bold and so unlike your daily life that you cannot help but stop and listen. And then, while you’re listening to this crazy guy speak truths of life, somebody joins him in guitar, then bass, and a drum beat pumping your blood through your veins. That’s about half the songs.

The other half tends toward a highly contrasting, trance-esque feel. The two sounds work together well, and one of the best examples of them mixing is in “Disaster Tourism,” pretty much my favorite song on this album.

I haven’t talked yet about Aaron Weiss’ “singing,” but it’s hard to describe something you haven’t heard anywhere else. In this album, it’s the familiar sing-speaking/crazy-talk/chanting-with-a-passion, the only difference here is that he sings with a brazen tongue and red throat. His singing is usually the deal-breaker with people as far as I can tell; some people just love it (like me) and some people just can’t get into it. But the catch is, the way he sings makes it easy to hear his words, and frankly, he’s one of the best lyricists I’ve heard. Ever. This album has some amazing lines in it, and is very quotable at times. The only complaint I have of the lyrics is that they tend toward the detached and weird, which is something I criticize because, though entertaining and creative, it feels like weird for the sake of weird sometimes. I still dig it, but it shows the immaturity of the work.

My biggest criticism of Catch for us the Foxes is in its pacing as an album. Because of the lengths of the songs, and their aggressive nature (even in their trance-phases), the album more or less blends together into one blob that’s difficult to listen to as a whole or differentiate between songs. Not everybody has had that experience with it, but I believe it to be something people other than I will experience. I tend to get a burned-out feeling from listening to this album in its entirety, which is a product of what I brought up above, and the particular style of the album, too; it’s just going to happen, like getting depressed listening to Soundgarden (although that mostly comes with the awareness of its mediocrity).

But hey, I recommend picking this up if you’ve listened to Brother, Sister and don’t want to wait for their next release (may 19th).

Although, from what I’ve heard of it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright, I may be recommending you check out Catch for us the Foxes if the new album sounds too refined, happy, optimistic, peaceful, or not self-destructive enough for your tastes as compared to Brother, Sister.

Enjoy these two MP3s (or some similar statement introducing the MP3s):

Disaster Tourism - Download - Stream
Four Word Letter, Pt. 2 - Download - Stream

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Website: www.mewithoutyou.com

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