blew my mind halfway to Mars<\/a>.\u00a0 The musical antecedents of The May Bees are even harder to point to, though there\u2019s surely a bit of early Bowie in the continental artiness and occasionally glammy guitar lines of songs like \u201cKing Or The Enemy,\u201d and perhaps a hint of White Stripes in the thrashy fighting-to-a-draw interplay between drums and guitar on many of these 16 tracks.<\/p>\nBut really, what The May Bees sound the most like is visionaries.\u00a0 In its own way, Saint-Denis<\/i>\u2014a concept album inspired by Orange\u2019s observations of urban life on the busy Montreal street for which the album is named\u2014is as progressive and expansive as anything Jethro Tull or Genesis ever conceived; it\u2019s just cast in the form of a cycle of mostly three- to four-minute, distinctly otherworldy pop songs.<\/p>\n
Even that description feels like a stretch, though.\u00a0 In truth, Orange uses only the sketchiest outline of pop structure to frame these songs; inside those basic verse-chorus frames he is a fearless, often noisy adventurer, filling out his canvases with soft-loud dynamics, unexpected textures, and thoroughly untamed guitars and drums.\u00a0 His vocals vary dramatically as well, switching abruptly from the rather keening, Dan Wilson-ish (Semisonic) tones of the plaintive-then-majestic \u201cChemical And Moisturized\u201d to the grungy, filtered vocal lines of \u201cValley Of Arts And Science.\u201d <\/p>\n
The richest pleasures here can be found in the alien beauty of melody-plus-thrash nuggets like \u201cDecide,\u201d which sounds a bit like both Transcendence and one of Semisonic\u2019s more experimental tunes, and \u201cSoft Paper Plane,\u201d which starts out winsome and weary, and ends up soaring on the strength of a chorus worthy of a Brian Wilson-Jack White co-write.\u00a0 The fact that it cross-fades into a stormy soundscape that bleeds into a 2:46 sonic collage of street-sounds-plus-repeating-chords (\u201cRue\u201d) that cuts the album neatly in half\u2026 well, let\u2019s just say the math professor was definitely at the lectern for this one, hair wild and a gleam in his eye.<\/p>\n
As for said second half, it\u2019s full of aggro dream-thrash (\u201cFor Promotional Use\u201d), off-kilter pop (\u201cPlayed Attraction Played Appeal\u201d), churning, twisted proto-anthems (\u201cWell\u201d), and the odd bit of studio playfulness (all 0:36 of \u201cServe It With Pickles\u201d).\u00a0 But don\u2019t lose focus, because lucky number 13 delivers \u201cMaybe Europe,\u201d a three-minute gem whose martial backbeat, expansive chorus and brilliantly unhinged riffs deliver visions of U2 on an acid bender. \u00a0The latter impression gets pushed through the panes of a kaleidoscope as the subsequent \u201cIron Cat\u201d essays what sounds like a bad trip set to loud guitar\u2014wisely held to a less-is-more 1:40.\u00a0 The album finishes out strongly with the soft open and big instrumental climax of \u201cThe Settlers\u201d and the rather somber and stately closer \u201cSaint-Denis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albums are born for many different reasons.\u00a0 Sometimes the objective is as simple as creating a forward career path for the players and composers.\u00a0 There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but for those who are genuinely driven to create, there is something thrilling about hearing an artist cast fashion to the winds and deliver the vision that is in their heart and mind without compromise.\u00a0 I can\u2019t say this album is going to be a regular for me.\u00a0 There are no sing-along choruses or riffs that stick in your head for days.\u00a0 What there is, is purity of intent, the abstract beauty inherent in translating a unique artist\u2019s vision into a work that fascinates and challenges. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8100],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-42441","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-may-bees","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42441","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42441"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}