Five Songs I'm Loving This Week

One of my favorite bands in the 90's was His Name is Alive. Actually, you could've shot a dart at any row of cds in my apartment and hit a 4AD cd--I loved that label that much. These days I don't keep up with the label like I used to (I wonder if I'm missing anything) and I'd sort of lost track of this band, also. In truth the man behind the band (William Defever) had started doing his own solo "Detroit Blues" projects and I wasn't interested in that side of his music. Once again, I could've been missing out on something, but I only have so much time in a day and very little money. So I sat out those cds.

I'd heard there was a new cd, and I was very interested to hear how it sounded. Would it be like Fort Lake? I liked that later 90's album alright, but it had a different singer and the music was less ethereal. Would it be like the ghost-music of their early albums? Before I knew the band was basically one guy from Livonia, Michigan I actually thought maybe the band was made up of aliens--the music was that strange (Strange is good).

I was pleasantly surprised. Of course I didn't expect it to be exactly like the earlier albums--those albums were 13-16 years ago. There's no way he could/would want to recreate those. However I was hoping that I would love the music as much as I did those older songs. The songs I've heard from Detrola send chills up my spine just like the old songs. For a comparison, I'm posting one of the new songs and a few of the older ones. The new song will count as Song 1 of this post, but the other two are being included as extras.

His Name is Alive, "The Darkest Night" (Originally obtained through The Camera as Pen, but it's gone now. (From the album Detrola)

His Name is Alive, "Are We Still Married", from the album Home is in the Head, 1991
His Name is Alive, "Ear", from Mouth By Mouth, 1993

I first heard Lake Holiday a few months ago, and immediately loved them. The first song I heard was "Love Vigilantes", but also on the same download page is "American Summer". It got my attention because, well, they're a Canadian band and I was all "but they're Canadian--why are they talking about America?" But then I remembered that people do travel, even if I've been stuck in the same town for most of six years. Anyways, the song is awesome. It's one of those songs that just builds and feels so complete that there's no possible way it could be any better of a song.

Another cool song I've been listening to lately is Loch Lamond, "Stripe". It starts very dirge-like, which of course is how I like my music. It uses a dragging repetition to drive in the heavy, dire feeling of the song. The singer's voice does get a bit emo, but I'm willing to forgive that because I like the song so much, and the song has violin in it. Utilizing the violin (or a wind instrument) will earn much goodwill credit with me. Also, according to their bio, one of the members is from another band I like, The Standard.

Dan Israel is going home. I can't say I blame him. I'm tired and I am home. I like this song alot, though. His voice reminds me of Jacob Dylan's and the music is acoustic and Western in feel. It's what I like to call "Cowboy acoustic" (or if it's Tim Easton, "Drunk Cowboy acoustic"). "Going Home" (scroll down) is my current favorite, but I'm also fond of Good Times (no, not the t.v. show, though I did like that also). **Random observation: I had a song last week called "Not Going Home" and this week I have a song called "Going Home". I wish the artists would make up their mind. No wonder people think musicians are so fickle.

Another one of my favorite bands is The Perishers. His voice is so plaintive, and the lyrics are heartbreakingly honest. I'm the queen of crying, and I almost get a little embarrassed hearing the honesty so plainly displayed. I just heard "Trouble Sleeping" on MTV2's Subterranean recently. I've been listening to the band for months though, and would recommend any song of theirs. (FYI: this is a WMA file--I just finished downloading it from Musicmatch. I'd found copies on two different websites, but neither one worked. I was miffed 'cause I wanted to include it, and i'd already written this paragraph)

The video for "Trouble Sleeping" is on their site. Huh. I'd forgotten they were Swedish. Just proves once again that my favorite music is Swedish. Maybe I should move there. It'd be cold, though. Maybe I shouldn't. Also, I highly recommend "Sway" by them.

Bonus stuff:

Also, I like what I've heard of this band, but Myspace is acting all crazy and downloading takes an eternity.

Also, (I love the word "also") I just posted on Rogue Wave last week, so it's a little early to posting on them again, but I did want to include a link for the video to their song "Publish My Love". It's a great song, and I really like the video.