'Autumn' by Seasons

Ugh.

(Oops. It's probably best not to open a positive review of an EP with the word "ugh." Such a choice can be misinterpreted by people who only read the first word of album reviews, and there are more people like that out there than you might think. That's basically how I read Pitchfork. But, in any event, I think it's necessary, and I assure you that the "ugh" in question is directed toward the reviewer and not the album under consideration. It's true. Read on.)

So. How are you enjoying the revitalized 704? It's going okay, I guess. In less than a week, we've been able to strike a nice balance between decent work, writing-for-the-sake-of-writing, and general silliness, which is all that any blog needs. (Did I just accidentally refer to myself as "we"? Jeez. I don't want to make a habit of that. As much as we'd like to, we're not tricking anyone into believing that The 704 is the responsibility of anyone but me. But sometimes even I get sick of using the word "I.")

But, even so, I had sort of planned on expanding the scope with the current post. Just to prove that I'm capable of it, I wanted to do a regular album review. You know? The type of thing Seasons could link to on their Facebook page without confusing and/or infuriating half the people who click on it. Something dribbling over with blurbable quotes. Something compact, incisive, and digression-free, something relentlessly to the point, something that would gracefully squeeze Seasons' vision into the clumsy vehicle of language, and leave my own vision (such as it is) stranded drunk on the side of the road, jumping up and down, waving its arms, desperate for attention, unheeded.

Alas, as you can see, I couldn't do it. And the clock is ticking, and I need to write something, because if I don't I may never write again. (Perhaps believing that is paranoid, but if paranoia can be used as a motivation to write every day, then hooray for paranoia.) But I didn't know where to start. A run-down of Seasons' ongoing musical evolution? An inquiry into the thematic role the seasons have played in Seasons' four EPs? An attempt to capture the remotely joyous strains of the opening track "Monday Night" in words?

Fine options, all of them, and I opted for none of the above. Instead, here I am trying to figure out why it is I can't get down to the business of reviewing this album. Which is okay, I guess. It would be dishonest to pretend that I'm not hounded by the above considerations. Posting a straightforward album review free of neuroses and self-obsession would be a pathetic attempt to play it cool. You're smart. You'd see right through it.

But then again, if this were a rare peek behind the scenes of my writing process, a once-in-a-lifetime pulling back of the curtain, then it might be interesting. But my curtain folded itself up into a hobo's bindle and hit the rails a long time ago. You can only pull a curtain back so many times before it grows restive and deserts you.

Ugh.

*

At this point in the cycle, it's probably foolish to read too much into the conceptual aspect of Seasons' output. When they wrote their first EP, they had all four seasons to choose from, and they opted to call it Spring. When their next EP was complete, of the three remaining seasons, Summer apparently seemed most apropos. The icebound songs of Winter made its title inevitable. Which leaves us with Autumn. And which seems more likely: That--in order to reach a good-faith fulfillment of a project that sounded like a great idea four years ago--Seasons wrote five songs with the intent of representing the season of autumn? Or that they wrote whatever songs they were inspired to write and, whatever the result, they were boxed in and had to call it Autumn?

Probably the latter. But still, viewing the songs through the prism of autumn can be fun, and I like to have fun.

If you think of autumn solely as the time of year when things die, you won't find Autumn to be particularly autumnal. But there's a falling action to the season--September and October's optimism giving way to November's cold despair, awaiting winter's chilly resolution--which is reflected in Autumn's rhythm.

The opening tracks--particularly "Monday Night," but also "These United States"--are glittery slices of psych-pop, which impose a sort of synesthesia on the listener: sounds that make you see colors. They're the type of songs that you're tempted to reach out and grab, if only your arm could penetrate the thick layer of THC that surrounds them.

The dream-fogged trip of "You Are" serves as a bridge between the EP's sunnier first half and the second half's impending storm: the desperate, aggrieved rumble of "Number of the Beat," a complex number animated by an ominously piercing violin; and the swaying epic closer "Lazy Bones," death-haunted and dour, featuring one the bravest and most affecting vocal performances you'll encounter anytime soon. It's a booming voice, pushed to its gravelly limit, beautiful and heartbreaking at once, like autumn leaves, knowing as we do that their vivid colors just mean that they're dying.