Shop Music
Amazon.com Music
Office Supplies
"Napster Official Site"
|
Dear Life
Home > Complete List of "v-w" Artists > Vigilantes Of Love > Item 31
 |
|
 |
 |
Dear Life
|
by Bill Mallonee
|
$10.99
At Amazon
on 9-8-2008.
|
|
Former Vigilantes of Love frontman Bill Mallonee has been releasing solo albums for three years, and Dear Life, as an album, is perhaps the most rewarding. The best way to prepare you for the album is to comment on the front and back cover art. The front bears a deceptively inviting drawing of scouts sitting around a campfire and listening to songs. Soft and black, the image evokes childhood memories and happy times. The back cover is a sharp color photo of an aging hand strumming a guitar. We will be led by that hand from cozy security to naked truth. The Songs: The first six songs are comfortable songs, sort of nostalgic musically. "After All This Dust Settles Down" opens the album with a sincere thank-you to all the folks who placed preorders to support the album. The next two songs are, on the surface, cut from the same cloth, but lines like "and you're wasted now and the whole thing was a lie" prove we will be heading toward the underbelly of Mallonee's heart; Ready and Red-eye is particularly upbeat musically. The next three are wistful love songs with touches of humor ("people sure buy a lot of what doesn't make 'em happy/but our love is money in the bank"). The next two songs are transitional and set us up for the desolation to come. "The Kidz on Drugz (or Life)" is thought-provoking and sad: "and you wanna ask God about things like cancer/but you don't think you'll get much of an answer...and the baggage that we all carry around/has this way of dragging you down." This song reminds me of "Silver Transparent" from Perfumed Letter. "Chameleon Me (Pin My Hope)" is an excellent, upbeat song about getting up off the ground. It would have made a great closer for Dear Life, but the hope hasn't been apprehended yet, so... On past VOL and Mallonee projects, an album would often end in a lament or dirge. This album has three, each one progressively darker and confessional than the last: they are brilliant, ranking with the best Mallonee's ever done. "I Will Never Be Normal (After This)" takes us from dependence on drugs, both literal and figurative, to dependence on faith: a lyrical masterpiece with one of the best statements of faith I have heard. "I Will Miss You Girl" takes us to the heart of the matter: how love suffers when we suffer for it. All of the props are gone in "Songwriter (Numb)," and Mallonee is most naked here: "I tried to make you like me with some words and a six-string...and even when it got cold, I hardly knew I'd died." After an entire album of counting the cost, Mallonee softly wails. Overall: The album has a definite cumulative impact. Song by song, the album unwinds like gauze to reveal a wounded heart. Thankfulness spirals downward into emptiness with little outposts of hope along the way. Life can be like this, and yet it is still dear. Highly recommended.
Comment | Permalink |
(Report this)
|
Dear Life
Available from Amazon
Price: $10.99
Updated on 9-8-2008.
|
|
|
|
|
|
NOTICE:
All product prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
(C) Copyright 2001-2003,
MusicMunchers.com
info@musicmunchers.com
Privacy Policy
Powered by
Bookshopmaker.com |
