The Sounding Board
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. We’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. We’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.
The audacious concept at the heart of Hunting Season is worth four stars all on its own.
Each of the 13 songs on Home Is Where’s third album ostensibly captures the dying thoughts of an Elvis impersonator who suffered fatal injuries in a grisly car wreck. To make it more bizarre and macabre, none of these songs are from the point of view of the same ill-fated impersonator, but they all stem from the same King-sized car wreck.1 Yes, Hunting Season‘s central conceit is an ultra-improbable hunk a hunk of burning humanity that claims the lives of a baker’s dozen of ersatz Elvi. It’s grotesque, absurd, shows poor taste in at least two ways, and it earns the emo erstwhile Floridians who committed to the bit a standing ovation from me.2
Hunting Season‘s dark reflections are— ironically — given life by the richest, fullest, most melodic music of Home Is Where’s career to date. Sauntering piano, sweet slide, big blasts of harmonica and bent strings define the LP’s sound and provide a home base for the band to return to on the occasions things detour to noisier, less structured terrain.3 It’s an album that draws as much from Gram Parsons and Decoration Day-era Drive-by Truckers as it does from the Midwest emo that provided a clear precursor to Home Is Where’s first two albums. Some tracks, like “Artificial Grass” lean more into the angular noise and throat-shredding yowl of emo, while others, like “Mechanical Bull” go full Flying Burrito Brothers, but every song pairs at least a little twang with morbid sentiments.4
While Home Is Where’s music has never sounded so crisp and relatively jaunty, the band’s voice remains familiar and distinctive. Bea MacDonald’s lyrics are as creatively bleak as ever. Last album, the whaler, gave us “Every day feels like 9/11.“ This album includes “The animals/ All crawl under/ My house to die/ And I’ll go/ To follow/ Them soon,” among other bon mots. Their singing is instantly identifiable, too. MacDonald often favors a lilting yelp, like an extra-pained Isaac Brock, over larynx-bloodying wail of the last couple Home Is Where albums, but the screaming comes back for the Hunting Season songs that land closer to emo rock. She also tries out a croon on a few of the album’s slower songs. It’s not a classically “good” singing voice, but it adds emotional honesty to a series of acrid sentiments attributed to final firing neurons of Elvis impersonators, who happen to have experience with the same clogged arterial highways and lonely landscapes as MacDonald.
The sprawling, splattered stretches of blacktop conjured by the lyrics are already a great match for the expansive Americana sounds that Hunting Season employs. The vocal verisimilitude just makes it that much better.
It’s impossible to imagine anyone else thinking up thinking up the bizarre dark poetry of these songs and recording them in this way. While it will be a bit too weird for many, listeners who can tune into the singular frequency will find they can’t help falling in love with Hunting Season.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
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The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
The Kids In The Hall, Season Three, Episode Six
– “I guess it was pretty good. For a Mister Wrong Guy!”
– “Mix mix, stir stir, I married young, it’s all a blur!”
– “Bingo, I’m certain, would like to know!”
– “You see, my friend Roland was just finished writing his coming out novel that was ‘not’ cliche…”
– “I was cruising criminals – you know, last call.”
– “And my Dad, dressed as my Mom. ‘Scott,’ he said, ‘feel my new tits! They’re better than Mom’s!’.”
– This is what they think the killer might have looked like. And this, I guess, is what they might have think he’d have looked like with a beard.”
– “And I wasnt hired to do that!”
– “You talk again, I shave your bodies.”
Andor, “Ever Been to Ghorman?” – A definite step up from the first three episodes. Less urgent and more well thought out. More to come Sunday.
Kojak, “A Strange Kind of Love” – It’s Taxi Driver meets Play Misty for Me! The taxi driver is obsessed with a late night radio host and takes her exhortations to do something about her boss, NYC sex workers, etc, way too literally. When it’s clear one of her fans is doing this, Kojak comes to her and she refuses to help, creating one of the least sympathetic characters we’ve seen on the show. Oh, and a cop is killed for the second episode in a row. Despite a successful effort to create a certain nighttime urban vice – and LA at night is a better substitute for NYC than LA by day – this one was just a clunker.
Over the long weekend:
Heretic – an enjoyably creepy (mostly) triple-header with good performances from Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East and Hugh Grant. I thought it suffered a little from “gets less compelling the more it reveals” syndrome though, I was loving it early on as Hugh Grant’s intentions remained hazy but while the later stuff is well-executed it felt more generic horror, I guess.
Broadway Melody of 1940 – finally getting back to my combined “watch a movie from every year” / backlog clearing effort with this Fred Astaire musical that I’ve never gotten around to because it didn’t sound like one of his more interesting vehicles. It’s good fun though and I loved the little showcases of other stars that pop us due to the eccentric rich guy demanding auditions for his new discoveries – the juggling woman in particular is great! The plot is pretty slight but I found it more engaging than some classic musicals, I wouldn’t say any of the song and dance numbers were show-stoppers but it was a solidly good time.
Doctor Who, “Wish World” – I’ve been pretty mixed on this season but I actually really enjoyed this one, not perfect by any means but it had some cool ideas and kept me on board throughout.
Top of the Pops – if some friends from one particular group chat aren’t busy on Friday nights then we’ll quite often watch the vintage episodes of TOTP that the BBC show every Friday night. The format is that they’re working through the archives in order but they pair a double-bill of chronological episodes with a bunch more random ones. They’ve reached 1997 in the sequential stuff, which is NOT a great era for pop music – boy bands, charity singles and maudlin ballads dominate. But this week the random episodes were from the late 70s through to the mid-80s and there was a ton of great stuff, I think 79-82 is possibly my favourite era for pop music as the energy of punk remained but people had started fucking around with synths and there are so many fun gems, both familiar and “what the hell is this?”.
Live Music – the big local music festival on Sunday, basically every venue in town hosting bands from lunchtime until late. I saw a ton of great stuff, my personal highlight was Armlock – kinda dream-pop with grungey guitars from Australia. Also really enjoyed the trashy bubblegum pop of Disgusting Sisters, some arty orchestral post-punk from The New Eves, the protest-pop of jasmine.4.t and some South African hardcore punk from Twenty One Children.
Also caught a smaller show on Saturday night from a local band called Connexion Man that I’ve been following for a while, their influences are pretty uncool but also very different from the mass of other new bands and the fact that they’re ignoring the trends makes them refreshing. I guess I’d call them folk-rock, they do three-part harmonies and the three main members rotate as frontman and they each have distinct songwriting styles. Really good support too, a songwriter called Float who writes songs that feel impressively timeless.
Yeah, there’s a lot to like in Heretic but it feels like the check it writes with long-talking Hugh Grant (who rescues the movie with his performance) doesn’t quite clear in the more traditional horror back half. Pretty interesting effort, though.
Woo, lip synched and regular live music! Sounds fun.
Woooooo disgusting live music!!
Wooo live and local music!
Poker Face, “Hometown Hero”
Probably the best episode of the season so far? This still has some of the broader humor of S2–the acid-tripping pitcher doing a standing flip on the mound made me laugh, but I felt bad about it–but overall it skews closer to the more nuanced S1 tone. Simon Rex is fantastic as the weathered, world-weary minor league pitcher who, his peak fastball years years in the past (along with his career “in the show”), agrees to a team-wide scheme to throw a couple games and collect a major payday only to have it all go wrong in an unpredictable, impulsive way. Rex is one of the more sympathetic killers the series has had, and I’m glad he gets an ending that, for all the bitter just deserts, still gives him a sense of satisfaction.
Forgot to mention this yesterday, but I also finished season two of The Righteous Gemstones before I left for vacation. Too late for full, detailed thoughts now, but the Godfather-esque ending–with Eli presiding over a sermon while simultaneously taking care of all family business–was, as in The Godfather, both awesome and ominous.
“Son of a gun! A toilet baby?!” Wonderful that we get the grossest possible callback that also creates real redemption and grace for Baby Billy. What a show.
Truly, Baby Billy needing to throw away his dignity to excavate his newborn son from the extremely blue Porta-Potty toilet water was the emotional capper I never knew I always needed.
Eephus – Watched this with a small crowd at the downtown non-profit cinema, then walked a couple blocks to a bar where I could watch my hometown team get walked off, perfect viewing conditions. I loved this, probably the best baseball movie since Bull Durham and with an easy-going pace and self-effacing humor that will only make me fonder on rewatches. The story, such as it is, shambles along inning to inning and the play lacks the slick precision of the pros. These are compliments. It also does what few sports movies can manage – produces a new route to an intense final showdown at the plate. What happens and who makes a key decision and why is something I could write for pages about, but it’s a bittersweet moment, no less shocking for being played so softly. What a great movie, it will make you believe in the baseball of poetry again.
My two favourite baseball movies are post-Bull Durham. And, as we all know, I’m the biggest baseball expert in the world, so my opinion matters, dammit.
100 percent agreed on all of this, especially (as we discussed elsewhere) “What happens and who makes a key decision and why is something I could write for pages about, but it’s a bittersweet moment, no less shocking for being played so softly.” I see a couple of influences there – one is the ur-tale of bittersweet baseball, Casey At The Bat, and the riff off that story is a brilliant conceit that, just like Casey, is inevitable and was building from the beginning. The other is Dancin’ Homer and the small ball failure therein, but Homer at least has his pals. Amazing movie.
Secret Honor – Largely a tour de force, especially Philip Baker Hall’s performance as a guilty, defensive (and loaded, literally and figuratively) ex-President Nixon narrating his life, and really a history of 20th century American politics, to merciless monitors and tape recorders that create multiple, black and white versions of Nixon via several screens. Altman is deprived of many of his usual tics and motifs and its easy to see how he took this as a challenge, creating in the process a better version of paranoid, conspiracy-laden Cold War history than the big budget biopic Oliver Stone made a decade later (much as I find Nixon pretty effective). There’s tragedy here but also repulsion in this portrait of the man, a guy who like Vic Mackey will not accept atonement or punishment for what he’s done, clinging to his loserdom and resentment. “FUCK ‘EM!”
Bridge Of Spies – In what should have been The Francis Gary Powers Story Spielberg and the Cohens nicely shift perspective and tell the story of Russian prisoner Rudolf Abel and his lawyer James Donovan. This starts with Abel’s arrest and we don’t even meet Powers until almost an hour in. This freshens up the well known Powers story and gives an interesting character in Donovan as well as his motivations in defending Abel (mainly because he likes Abel). Great old-school craft from Spielberg and the polished cinematography of Janusz Kaminski. The art direction is detailed down to the visas. Hanks is of course great as the American Hero (or what is more commonly known as, The Tom Hanks Role). Rylance is very good in his minimalist approach. I liked Scott Shepard as the CIA man. Sebastian Koch is excellent as the lawyer Vogel. As the lone female Amy Ryan has an intricately realized role as Donovan’s wife. The moments behind the wall are fantastic. The shooting down of Powers is visually well done. Otherwise not a lot of suspense really except near the end but it still manages to be enormously entertaining and moving in its old-fashioned storytelling.
High Potential , pilot. It’s literally formulaic: you take sherlock holmes plus dee from its always sunny and you got this show. The twist is that Sherlock is a single mom who with a high iq has underperformed her potential, as she also has neurodivergence or mental illness that keeps her from adapting and thriving in most work and social settings. Sherlock would also not thrive in most careers and only succeeded as a consulting detective by use of opium
and cocaine, angles kaitlin olson can definitely explore. They got some nice little touches that make this pop. Olson’s character is not far at all from Dee, just a tad less abrasive and a lot smarter. When imagining hypothetical explanations for clues we get amusing little tableauxs vivant. When she’s describing a murder scene we get a well-composed medium shot of one dead victim, a living victim tied to a chair, and a guy in gimp suit leans into frame from too close to the camera at the mention of a “bondage freak.” Very solid gag construction here (pun intended).
I will continue watching this. “Sherlock Holmes but [x]” is the perfect formula. What she really needs is a good watson though. Mac would be a great watson, but not for Dee. You need Mac to be a watson where his internalized homophobia can really shine. Mac would be a great Watson for Dr House. Dee needs a real sad sack Watson. Cricket. Cricket should be watson.
What did we listen to?
Off The Ground, Paul McCartney
Pretty fun hard rock. It amazes me that Paul McCartney manages to always sound like Paul McCartney but at no point ever sounds like The Beatles. It helps that most of his individual albums are fairly aesthetically tight and that his career moved across genres.
Lulu, Lou Reed
This is actually the first Reed album I ever listened to, and I listened to it back in 2011 when it came out and had the extremely vocal negative reaction. Sadly, I came back with the same reaction I had then – it doesn’t work. I can hear how good Reed’s work is now; his voice has never sounded better, not in spite but because of how old and cragged he sounds, and I can hear how good the melodies and lyrics themselves are. Metallica I’m fairly indifferent to, but they’re churning out solid metal riffs.
The two, however, go together like oil and water, to the point where the two halves sound like inelegant mashups of two completely different songs; what would be jazzy on a Reed album comes off as incompetent here. The one song it really works on is “Dragon”, because both Metallica and Reed push so deeply into the song that both become hysterical, yet focused; I loved Reed’s rage and focus as he sang.
Singular: Act II, Sabrina Carpenter
I appreciate her talent whilst not having much time for her music. Her actual music blends together a variety of genres into one clear aesthetic, and her lyrics are very much rooted in the tradition of pop as self-expression for, if you’ll forgive the word, banal social observations. If I were feeling mean, I’d say she was taking a position of authority where she complains about people telling her what to do whilst very much telling people what to do with their own problems, but I respect that this is part of the job she’s taken up.
T Rex, T Rex
The first under their shortened name, which feels like part of trying to be a bit more accessible. These guys have to have been part of the wave of people imitating Dylan and, to an extent, The Beatles, only like five years too late. Just like on Bringing It All Back Home, this alternates between acoustic numbers and light rock. The lyrics are absurdist, and the shift from a popular format to the even equally more popular one that replaced it feels, if not actively cynical, then the act of a follower. Still, I’m 100% a mark for this aesthetic and enjoy it.
“banal observations” is a good summary, speaking of blonde pop stars, of why Taylor Swift is very popular (and talent, I’d never deny her ear) and why I don’t find her interesting, whereas Chappell Roan has such a distinct personality even in the most universal pop songs.
Finished Stephen King’s You Like It Darker on audiobook, which I classify under Listened To particularly because of the performance by Will Patton on the stories not read by King himself. The collection is a mix of new stuff and rejuvenated stuff from the drawer with a number of ups and downs and at least one too many cops obsessed with pursuing the wrong man. But King, the guy who once parceled out a novel into ten novellas and now gives us two collections’ worth in one, can’t dig around this long without finding at least some gold. The story “Rattlesnakes” follows-up Cujo of all things, though it’s not another dog story, and I found Patton’s reading of two demanding ghostly twins so unnerving I had to pause while washing dishes to hear it out. A very King moment, where none of it is particularly scary but the accumulation of his description (the children died forty years ago and now have the bodies of grown men and the heads of toddlers) and Patton’s unforced whine of their voices rattled a nerve too close to the spine. I feel sheepish admitting to it in broad daylight, but I think everybody has had that feeling in the dark at some point.
King always has at least one story or moment in his collections that rattles your cage, so to speak. (Thinking of “ladyfingers tastes like ladyfingers” or “The Dune” which is like a classic EC Comics story with it’s fantastic twist of a last line.)
1001 Albums, etc.:
The Modern Lovers – S/T: Jonathan Richman is one of those artists that I enjoy but find that his songs kinda go on a little bit too long. In Modern Lovers format he mostly gets away with it though, this is good stuff although I think “Government Center” is my favourite which is technically not part of the original album track list.
David Bowie – Station to Station: I used to own this one on CD and struggled to get into it but I enjoyed it a bit more this time around, perhaps due to the recent memory of Young Americans, which I did not care for. The Berlin albums immediately after this one are my favourite Bowie era but this is a strong step in that direction.
Joni Mitchell – Hejira: I keep thinking “this is going to be the album where she goes too jazz and loses me!” and then her voice remains beautiful and I do not care. None of the other albums are quite as astonishing as Blue, perhaps, but I’ve enjoyed all the Joni on the list.
Boston – S/T: Hell yeah! I kinda love Boston, of all the bands that sound kinda like this they have the best (vocal and guitar) harmonies and also the best album covers. The title track of their follow-up album remains my favourite of their songs but this is a much stronger album overall and it sounds so good, 70s studio mastery.
Blank Check, the Look Who’s Talking episodes – they are having a lot of fun with these. Picking apart the logic of films that were never really intended to make logical sense is always a good time.
It is fun when Blank Check gets into once-popular but now forgotten territories, discussing the trends and weird cul-de-sacs of entertainment.
Double Boston! And amusing in polar opposites, I too have a large fondness for Tom Scholz’ studio wizardry (the bass riff in Foreplay/Long Time!) but my heart belongs to Richman, making those secretaries feel better.
All I really want from rock & roll is a ton of guitar harmonies and a fold-out album cover with a fucking spaceship on it.
Probably Station to Station is my favorite Bowie record though I usually skip “TVC15” fun as it is.
Definitely Low for me although I will also accept “Labyrinth OST” depending on my mood.
I go back and forth on those two, but hey, “As The World Falls Down” is a magical piece of work.
Trying to dip my toe into Bach but having a tricky time, meanwhile I’ve been playing Act Two of Follies – where the characters have a collective nervous breakdown – on repeat. Is this healthy? Probably not. Is “Buddy’s Blues” amazing and does it remind me of my dad’s weird relationship issues that I’m trying to avoid? Also yes.
“I’ve got those ‘god why don’t you love me, oh you do, I’ll see you later’ blues!”
Romaplasm, Baths
This album almost gives me a candy box feeling where I’m excited by each song’s potential (and then actual) deliciousness. Very delightful, and I love the (literal) variety of sounds. Favorites include the playfully sexy “Abscond” and the opener, “Yeoman,” which feels bright and joyous and romantic and futuristic all at once.
Everything Changes Everything Stays the Same, The Loft
There’s almost a Beatles feel to this, which I love. “Feel Good Now” is a complete earworm, and “Ten years” burrowed into my subconscious in almost uncomfortable way. (Have I been worried lately that I’ve wasted the last few years of my life? Maybe! This all hits home.) Great wistfulness to some of these, even as it’s all still extremely likable and easy to listen to.
The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
I had actually heard this one before, when it was synched up with a planetarium’s laser light show. But I was in high school, and sober, and all in all, I feel like that was not the best way to experience things. This got me thinking about how certain albums seem to come with certain idealized listening conditions–some music should be played only in a convertible on the open road, for example–and this falls into that category. It’s often chill (give or take some clocks chiming and alarms ringing), and it feels like it should be listened to in the dark, or with some kind of Fantasia-style set-up, so I can see why people keep trying to play it with The Wizard of Oz, etc. And then the word kick in, and it’s good mellow rock, with occasional surprisingly poignant bangers like “Brain Damage.” I think this benefits from a more total immersion than I can usually give music, but I’m glad to have sunk into it.
Rubber Factory, The Black Keys
Awesome album, lots of great guitar. “When the Lights Go Out,” “Till I Get My Way” (excellent shout here), “All Hands Against His Own”… all incredible bits of bluesy rock, and then “Grown So Ugly” is an interesting bit of storytelling with a brutal, even mean punchline that hits all the harder for the relatively antique setting.
Hounds of Love, Kate Bush
Love the Curse of the Demon sampling in “Hounds of Love.” This whole album feels like Bush has a total commitment to her vision and delivery; like The Dark Side of the Moon, this feels like a cohesive work of art, with the album structured as a whole rather than as a compendium of songs. For all the tremendous variety here (thinking of the way the strings almost act as percussion in “Cloudbursting” vs. the lullaby quiet of “And Dream of Sheep” vs. the eerie horror and techno of “Waking the Witch” vs. the, well, jig of “Jig of Life”), there’s a real sense of an arc, complete with joy and triumph when “The Morning Fog” kicks in. Wondered while listening to this if Bush influenced Fiona Apple, and I felt very gratified that I was right despite my general lack of musical knowledge.
I am regrettably unable to appreciate “Running Up That Hill” as I should, because the Placebo cover was what I heard first–many, many times, since I love it–so it feels “right” to me where this doesn’t.
Moanin’, Mr. Airplane Man
Excellent rock with hints of blues and a little bit of country: “Jesus on Mainline” feels like it belongs in a Justified episode. There’s an intimacy to all these, where I almost feel like I’m listening to it all in a bar. “Commit a Crime” has a great force to it, with confidence and anger; “Sun Sinking Low” has twang, dread, and quiet fury, and may be my favorite.
When Your Heartstrings Break, Beulah
There’s a brashness here that has its own appeal. I really like the instrumentation, especially the horn. “If We Can Land a Man on the Moon, Surely I Can Win Your Heart” is an exceptionally strong closer, but this is just a deeply enjoyable album overall, with a nice specific vision and sense of imagination.
Singles: 45’s and Under, Squeeze
Loved playing this in the rental car driving around Uruguay. This is an unbelievably fun album, often wry in a way that really works for me, and like other ALL SINGLES ALL THE TIME collections, it offers up almost wall-to-wall groovy, bouncy earworms. “Tempted” was the only one I was familiar with in advance, and I’m spoiled for choice on either highlights: maybe “Cool for Cats,” “Take Me I’m Yours,” “Slap & Tickle,” “Up the Junction” (some poignant storytelling here), “Another Nail in My Heart,” and “Is That Love?”
Hell yeah Romaplasm! Glad you enjoyed it – Yeoman is one of my favourite songs, I love that catchy synth bass and the unusual lyrical themes. he has said in interviews that he watches a lot of anime and that inspires some of the songwriting (the ones that aren’t about self-loathing or sex, that is – but maybe also some of those).
I’m really glad you recommended it! And now I totally want anime recommendations from Baths.
He used to post a lot of interesting and funny stuff on Twitter, but alas now the internet is now perpetually on fire.
“Jesus on Mainline” feels like it belongs in a Justified episode — damn, that is it. Such a ghostly song, glad you dug the band!
And yeah, that Squeeze collection is all killer no filler. I like the lazy yet mournful groove of Black Coffee In Bed a lot, but man does Up The Junction sting, the New Yorker wishes it had such a perfect short story.
My mom’s a huge Squeeze fan so she’d be pleased to hear this.
Ooh, if you like Kate Bush covers and you’re still going through the grand old 2000s list, I can’t wait for you to get to The Futureheads.
Going through very slowly, but definitely still going!