Categories : Featured Review, Music Reviews, Rock + Pop, Top Rated.
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Rating: 4 / 5 Reviewer: David Coats |
“I hope you catch syphilis and die alone.”
And with that, so begins the third album from Chicago’s Scotland Yard Gospel Choir.
While their 2007 self-titled album opened with the blistering ‘Aspidistra’ before descending into a series of quiet ballads, …And The Horse You Rode In On tips the scales in favour of the band’s Clash influences (seriously, you’d swear this band was from London). Those ballads added a level of seriousness that is missing here, emphasized by the overwrought vocals of Ethan Adelsman, who dominates this album as Elia Einhorn dominated the previous album, but at least this time the momentum is consistent throughout. The few ballads there are contain enough emotional delicacy to compliment the energy of the rest of the album.
The signature of this band, though, is its lyrical style. If you were friends with this band, it would be the kind of tactless friend who spoke without thinking, but you would also admire this friend and secretly envy his ability to express his feelings without fear of consequence. The result is a lyrical honesty that is initially stunning, and alternately creepy, hilarious, and comforting. What makes this style so endearing, is that you can take lyrics like “Here I am / no one to love me / and an STD I caught / while trying to get over you,” or “God I sound like such a sad bastard” with a healthy dose of irony. Simultaneously, though, there is something intensely, almost disturbingly, identifiable in lyrics like “Later on I cried for hours because I knew she could never be you,” or “I thought it perfect, you obviously not and you were right / now when I catch wind of your successes / I wish I were dead / but when I hear of your hardships I smile / and think it was all worthwhile.” These songs offer release, having said what you, for any number of reasons, couldn’t say.
Details magazine reviewed Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity as such: “Keep this book away from your girlfriend – it contains too many of your secrets to let it fall into the wrong hands.” You’ll find yourself saying the same about The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir.
