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20050922

Apollo Sunshine (self-titled)
Did you ever Flip! out to the point where you feel like you are on the other side of the world and you don't know how you got there, and you can't find your way home? So keep breathing, you oughta know how to do that. Keep breathing, that's all you can do. This lesson, that home is where the heart is, gets taught within the first few minutes of the Apollo Sunshine self-titled second album, their first for spinART. From this dramatic start, it really only gets better. This is one of those albums that I love so much I go out of my way tell anyone within earshot. It feels like a duty to do so when such a cohesive work of disparate musical ideas comes together into such a gorgeous work. I implore you to give this one a few listens straight through. There are so many good songs on this record, allow me to elaborate.

First I was hooked on "Flip!" and then on doin the "Phony Marony" and then I realized that "Today Is the Day" - talk about inspiration to seize the day, "if that grass looks fun to roll in, then roll in that fun grass!" Just when you are cruisin down rockabilly road happily humming all the tunes, wondering if the album can get any better, towards the very end, along comes the "Lord." This one has it all, lyrics to make you ponder, screaming guitars, screaming in your face, it's really catchy. Don't leave me Lord, if you're really in there.

If good albums are measured in catchy singles, this is the album of the year - there are at least seven solid sunshiny singles on this record. Not to mention the instrumentals (the rumbling bass to kick off "The Hotter, The Wetter, The Better" and interludes (like the quaint "Finger Pointing at the Moon" and "God"). The band asks some hard questions in between melodica and wood block and screaming guitar. For example, in "Eyes" they ask "Unexplainable things can happen when we look each other in the eyes, right? So why is it we don't have the time to look each other in the eyes?" Then they proceed to create layered vocal and piano harmonies making me wish my eyes and mind would decide that I am blind so I can hear my heart tell me how I feel.

Apollo Sunshine are everything we like about genre-defying bands like Phish, The Slip or Ween, the music goes from charging shred-rock to poetic balladry with lush harmonies and, as you may recall from the track "I Was On The Moon" on their debut Katonah, even the song endings are inventive. There are sounds you've heard before, words that make sense, but this album is not cliché. Quite the opposite, it works on many levels. This is one of the best albums of 2005, do not be afraid to give it several listens. - TK
(first four paragraph Rhapsody blog ever...now I will go to bed, for I have thought too much for one day)


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