Tuesday 9 June 2009

Fight Bite - Emerald Eyes

Self-released, 2008

1. The Accident
2. Never Let Go
3. Swiss Ex Lover
4. Widow's Peak
5. Emerald Eyes
6. Age of Faith
7. Small Wonder
8. Dorothea
9. Strings
10. Spring Rain

Reading around, other reviews of this album have used adjectives like "haunting", "eerie" and "dreamy" to describe this album. Whilst they are not far wrong, as this album is indeed drenched with reverb and hazy production, I believe it misses out the key element which pervades this album and pulls those other elements together: nostalgia. From purposely lo-fi effects, through 80s organ synth, to the female vocals that are reminiscent of the early days of French pop, this album brings the past into the present and with it come those haunted, dreamlike feelings.

In an interview band member Leanne says she hopes listeners 'find the music to be beautiful and sad'. I agree that the music is exactly this and yet it is a reaction that's, if one thinks about it, quite illogical. How can an experience be both beautiful and sad when they are almost polar opposites? Yet it's not hard to think of numerous other works which also provoke this combination of emotions: Aranofsky's movie The Fountain, Jesu's album Conqueror or Millais' painting Ophelia for example. So what is it about all of these that allows for conflicting emotions to exist in harmony? My guess is that the simplest answer is the most likely: they are all objective. By being experience-by-proxy, art - and this album - allows its audience to mix and match any combination of emotions that could not normally coexist if your experience a first hand situation.

Why have I written a short psychoanalysis of the album? Because I believe the album's power lies in its appeal to emotion in very primal ways. Nostalgia functions through the distancing between memory and present, much as this album's ability to glue beauty to sadness functions through it's medium as music, as experience-by-proxy. Even the song's lyrics reflect this with its tales of old, old loves and heartbreaking memories. But this is not cold, calculated, surgical attempt at evoking emotion; like all the greatest emotional albums this feels like a shoot first, ask questions later outpouring of creativity that succeeds through it's simplicity in approach (despite some songs apparently having 35 tracks!).

Recommended if:
You're an old romantic at heart, love late nights and drink red wine.

Similar:
Cocteau Twins - Victorialand

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