Sad Birthday – Bombadil
25 Daniels – Bombadil
I’m usually pretty terrible about matching up a review of a record with its release date. In part that’s because I’m so far behind these days that I don’t get around to reviewing things until they’ve been out for six months and everyone has already made up their minds about it (Speaking of which, the new Neko Case album is pretty good, eh?). But I’m making an exception for this one because the album is great and the band is thoroughly deserving of any attention they might receive.
Bombadil have long been a favorite of the blog. My first mention was almost three years ago when all they had out was a short EP. They followed that up with A Buzz, A Buzz which was one of my favorite albums from last year. And yesterday was the release date for their second full-length record.
Tarpits And Canyonlands picks up right where the previous album left off. It features much the same vivaciousness, the kind of sound that’s only possible when you combine the an organic, acoustic feel with an almost boundless sense of energy.
To grasp what I mean, look no further than the second track “Sad Birthday” which is hearfelt, absolutely dripping with a deep sense of empathy and yet simultaneously is one of the most rambunctious and infectious songs I’ve heard all year. Bombadil has always impressed with their ability to build walls of sound out of airy instrumentals and harmonies, and there is plenty of that on display here. The interplay between the simple piano line and the percussive rat-a-tats, in particular, is a work of pure and simple genius.
The album is full of reference to marriage. The backstory is that they started writing songs for friends’ weddings which found their way onto the record. So it wasn’t precisely an intentional concept. But it works all the better that way. With these forays into the question of lives lived together, the power of a shared future, you get a backbone for the whole record. The location from which all things must depart. The center around which all else must circle.
“Honeymoon” sets the stage. It’s possibly their most perfectly arranged song yet, which is particularly high praise for this band. The last minute and a half or so is simply stunning. It’s a rare thing to marvel at the perfect placement of every note and while simultaneously being blown away by the sheer living force of the sound.
In a past review I likened them to The Pogues, and I’m even more convinced of that comparison now. It’s not a matter of the sound, precisely – though they do share quite a bit there. But even more it’s about the way they take a long folk tradition and make it completely their own. It’s hard to identify specific places where it happens, but the total product is something that somehow transcends all expectations.
Some music astonishes you because of the way it innovates. And on occasion Bombadil give you a little bit of that. But far more often they astonish in an entirely different way: by producing music that sounds so absolutely right that you can’t believe it didn’t already exist. It isn’t that they reveal something new. It’s that they reveal what was already there but you had so completely inured yourself to that it had been lost.
The result is songs like “Oto The Bear” or “Pyramid” or “So Many Ways to Die” which feel like they’ve been part of you for your entire life, but which you could never have imagined until they were revealed to you.
And when I think about it, in a lot of ways that’s the ultimate and purest task of music: to show you what you should have already known but had somehow managed to lose track of. That which seemed impossible until you realized it had been with you all along.
Of all the records that I’ve heard this year, it’s hard to think of one that more effectively accomplishes this than Tarpits and Canyonlands. While there are occasional missteps – mostly on the tracks where they overemphasize intracy of harmony and lose some of the rambunctiousness that characterizes their best work – the project as whole comes to life with such radiance that everything else seems to fade a little bit into the background.
There might be better albums this year, but it’s hard to imagine one that more fully communicates and embodies the richness of life. It’s not about finding answers. It’s just about knowing that that there are other folks out there struggling, trying, failing, getting back up again, and wondering what it all means. You share the road with your fellow travelers, and together you sing along with the end of “25 Daniels” and remind yourself of how much we all have to share with each other if only we could remember it.
So get yourself a copy of the record, and give yourself permission to remember what it feels like.