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This one's a real grower. On first listen the music glossed over
the surface of my mind like a curling stone over Saskatchewanian ice.
But after the second listen it started to sink into my subconscious
like The Andrea Doria - slowly but surely. In Cadeo
has a real clean rock sound that is quite appropriate to put on your
stereo while you are cleaning your house. You will get these songs
stuck in your head. It is clean, clean, clean (production, morals,
instrumentation). Making Our Graves is a gemstone like Citrine;
it's polished, it's pretty, but it's not as precious as Topaz, yet
some people will love it just the same.
The album is a full length follow-up to last year's five song EP.
The tracks blossom from noisy melodic pop in the vein of Franz
Ferdinand to gang sing-alongs which try to match The Arcade
Fire's verve without the darkness. Those are both tough acts to
follow. There are a lot of monosyllabic repeating vocal phrases like
"lay me low/lay me low" on "Low" where the music
sounds Interpol-ish. Dan Neustadt sings more than Paul
Banks even though he also has a tenor-baritone monotone style.
There is more Interpol-y moody guitar refrains in "Miles Away,"
another fine track.
Songs that at first seem simple and contained branch off with
flourishes from a wide range of instruments: accordion, melodica,
Moog, stylophone, wurli, chimes, whistling and yes, even a glockenspiel.
That glockenspiel kicks some ass in "West," which is a
song that embodies some of the things I love and hate about rock
music. There is this dramatic and typical (and usually heterosexual)
story of love and loss that is played out in an infinite number
of lyrics throughout rock history. The black and white art scheme
and line drawings of what appears to be a Roman emperor, an elephant
and the band members on the digipack (no insert) mirror the lucid,
sturdy sound of the band.
In Cadeo would be a good band to see live. It's a soundtrack to a
downtown city bar crawl. However, if you can't see them live, Making
Our Graves will make you feel like you are out at a New York basement
club drinking cranberry vodkas with your friends when you're actually
at home just doing your dishes.
-Joe Martinez
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