{"id":40826,"date":"2008-04-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/putting-the-days-to-bed\/"},"modified":"2008-04-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-10T00:00:00","slug":"putting-the-days-to-bed","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/putting-the-days-to-bed\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting The Days To Bed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Putting the Days To Bed, <\/i>the third album from Seattle indie rockers The Long Winters, has \u201cMe\u201d written all over it: it\u2019s a forty-minute slice of lushly catchy, lyrically intimate guitar-based pop, with impassioned vocals that sound just enough like Okervill River\u2019s Will Sheff to have me instantly intrigued — basically, the only incentives I need to drop some money on yet another impulse purchase.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Though frontman John Roderick grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, the word that comes to mind most on this disc is \u201cwarm:\u201d nearly every track is backed by jangling, cheerful instrumentation and layered harmonies, creating a sunny soundscape to backdrop the bittersweet, at times even reaching towards bleak, lyrics. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Starting things off, \u201cPushover\u201d establishes the quintessential Long Winters sound: rich melodies, lilting guitar riffs and a sense of uncontainable joy that all culminates in a stick-in-your-head chorus.\u00a0 In a string of similarly winning pop gems, \u201cFire Island, AK\u201d combines stabs of guitar and rollicking piano chords, while \u201cTeaspoon\u201d is pure aural bounciness with a set of slightly ominous lyrics (\u201cYou weighed your suitcase down, but it still wouldn’t sink \/ I know that crime doesn’t pay, but I don’t know any other way\u201d) that nicely undercut the overt cheer. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cHindsight,\u201d for me, is by far the album\u2019s pinnacle, at least in terms of achingly bittersweet, all too true lyricism: \u201cAnd if I hold you now, will I be holding a snowball when the season changes and I’m craving the sun?\u201d Roderick croons as the song crescendos into a shimmer of guitars and cascading drums. Here, all of Roderick\u2019s lyrical focus on regret and unfulfilled wishes are made lovely by his raw, wry candor and the triumphant instrumentation, assuring that memory doesn\u2019t always have to be melancholy.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tough act to follow, but \u201cSky Is Open\u201d does a solid job, figuring in electronic beats and jagged guitars that work unexpectedly well with the soaring vocals and the song\u2019s sense of sheer optimism; the lyrics tell the tale of a retired Air Force pilot recognizing the limitlessness of the skies, culminating in his proclamation, \u201cI\u2019m finally the highest bird.\u201d\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Admittedly, the album does slow a bit as it hits its middle, remaining altogether likeable but a bit too predictable in its consistency: \u201cClouds\u201d and \u201cUltimatum\u201d both meander along to twinkling twangs of guitars, but they\u2019re missing that essential hook that made the preceding songs so endearing, though the rawer vocals and punchy beats of \u201cRich Wife\u201d are a nice break from the relative slump. Closer \u201cSeven,\u201d an aching acoustic ballad that\u2019s accented well with crisp drumbeats and lush guitars, reclaims the momentum just in time to leave Putting The Days To Bed <\/i>in your head, making this album a well-rounded, if not altogether groundbreaking, effort from a promising band. <\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":29281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8171],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40826","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-long-winters","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40826"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}