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Completing The List: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea



This is the first album on this list that I'm going to listen to and review fully, with more coming fairly soon. Also just a quick thanks to Hollie Sayers for creating the great title for my blog, it looks great now.

It's taken me a little while to get around to writing this one simply because it is so much to tackle - it's one of the biggest indie records ever produced, it has so much to it and is deceivingly complex and difficult to write about that I really struggled to find an easy way to write this review. Simply put, this album is a mess, and so will this review be, but unlike the review the album is a mess that ends up being enjoyable.

It's one of the more confusing albums that I have listened to, although not on par with albums such as 'Pulse Demon' by Merzbow, despite the fact that it is relatively musically simple and linear. The confusion on 'In The Aeroplane Over The Sea' comes not so much from the music, although the difference in time signature from track to track can be jarring, but more from the concept, idea and lyrics of the album, with very little actually being given away as to what Jeff Magnum is ever actually on about or what sort of feel of an album he is trying to achieve. In terms of sound it gives off the idea of nostalgia, subdued sadness and regret mainly from the vocals and the often minimalist instrumentation. But at the end of the day, it doesn't actually matter too much what this album is about or what it's trying to do, without sounding too artsy it really is an album that you can take it to be what you want it to be.

The opening track, 'King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1' is a fairly bog-standard but easy listening acoustic-rock song that says very little of what the album is, besides the fact that you never really know what to expect. Magnum appears to be talking absolute nonsense for the vast majority of the song besides a couple of disturbing lyrics 'And dad would dream of all the different ways to die', still not really giving any idea of any sort of story, yet somehow the combination of the simplistic music and odd lyrics makes it oddly infectious. And then any sense of normalcy stops when it smoothly transitions into the droning "I love you Jesus Christ" of 'King of Carrot Flowers Pts. 2 & 3'. The meandering song somehow breaks into punk-like guitars and prog-rockish distortion in the second half of the song. By this point the album feels like it's already coming off the rails and it's barely even got moving.

The title track comes as a bit of a breath of convention with another pleasant acoustic/folk-rock song puttering along with more nonsensical lyrics but a melody that fairly easily gets stuck in your head. However, it's not the pleasant-but-plain folk songs that make this album legendary, tracks like 'The Fool', a 2 minute long jazz interlude that manages to be monotonous yet captivating, are the kind of thing the album is known for. One of the catchiest and most memorable songs on the album comes right in the middle of it, 'Holland, 1945', a song that doesn't really feel like it's aged much since it came out, although the production does make it slightly more annoying outside the context of the album. Yet another lyric sheet that makes no sense, but the lyricism here does at least sound good as the quick pace and rhyming adds to the sense of controlled frenzy.

There are enough more trimmed back songs to balance this out, 'Communist Daughter' feels as though it should really be the closer with the trumpets making it feel more of a farewell than a mid-album interlude. Despite this, it still offers a bit of a breather, which is weirdly needed even though the album isn't exactly full-on, and a detached sense of sentimentality. Unfortunately, the album slightly struggles to pick the energy back up again, lumbering through 'Oh Comely' and then a sense of "Hasn't this been played already?" in 'Ghost'. '[untitled]' does present a bit of difference in the latter half of the album, but it feels tired and too much of a late grasp of getting things back on track. The album closes in much the same way it started, a basic acoustic-rock song which is pleasant enough and works well enough within the context of the album but just doesn't hold up by itself

Despite the fact that In The Aeroplane Over The Sea does manage to pretty perfectly perform 'normal' songs, this isn't what makes the album good, and unfortunately it's actually what makes the songs by themselves a bit dry. However, the album as a whole has so much that feels like convention that just slight deviations from this, 'Holland, 1945', feel like a huge change and accomplishment for the band. Unfortunately, it really feels like it drags a bit in some places and there's a fair bit of monotony and repetition to the point where you're holding on for a slight change of pace or sound. It's a good album as a whole, although can feel pretty tired after a short while, but the songs themselves just aren't really doing much at all.

6/10

Favourite songs: Holland, 1945, Communist Daughter, King Of Carrot Flowers Pt.2 & 3

Least favourite songs: Two-headed Boy Pt. 2, Ghost

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