I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: CHASTITY BELT-Time to Go Home (2015).

Time to Go Home, the band’s second album is quite a large departure from the rawness of No Regerts.

It polishes some of the harshness of the guitar sound with lots of echo.  It’s more jangly.  The lyrics are still powerfully feminist but there’s no more Giant Vaginas–it’s more introspective.

“Drone” opens with cool guitars and a lovely melody–the guitars feel more significant.  And, more importantly, the bass and drums are more prominent, making the disc feel like a full band.

Lyrically the bridge offers a nice twist on ones: “He was just another man, tryn’a teach me something.”

And yet for all of the improvements, the song is kind of bland.  In part because all of those new sounds (which are great) kind of meld together a bit too much.  The same is true for the next two songs as well.  Although again the addition of lovely backing vocals on “Trapped” are also welcome.  The songs just aren’t that dynamic.

“Why Try” is a punky blast though, and returns to a blunt nihilism: Why try / Why do I try? / Why? / Alone and alive / Why can’t I escape my mind.  There’s some nice edgy jolts that keep the song interesting.

There’s also the two minute punk blast of “The Thing.”  “No one trusts anyone /
Everyone’s infected.”  It’s got fast guitars and death screams at the end.

Its with “Cool Slut” that the album seems to wake up a bit.  The guitar sound of the first album comes back with some of the sophistication of the newer songs.  Th guitar is clean and sharp, and the vocals are much louder and more direct.  It’s a great song and is something of Chastity Belt classic.  The video is great too (and not at all slutty, it’s more of a Friends opening credit spoof.

There are two songs on the record that have a really long outro.  “On the Floor” is 6 minutes long, but the song itself s really only about 3.  The final 3 minutes are a jam, but it’s kind of a bland jam, just repeating the same pretty guitar melody for three minutes.  “Joke” on the other hand, ends with a nearly 3 minute outro but it’s really successful.  There’s a guitar solo that meanders (it’s not great but it’s interesting) and half way through the end jam, the rhythm guitar gets louder and louder which keeps the whole thing fresh and interesting.  The song itself is a huge highlight of the disc, with a great melody and a really catchy chorus.  I love the way it slowly builds, first with drums, then a first guitar and then a second guitar.  It’s not often that one of the best songs is number 7 on the disc, but this song is outstanding (nad was great live).

Indeed, the last four songs are really terrific.

“Lydia” is sung by guitarist Lydia Lund.  Her voice is softer and the guitars are very pretty.  It sounds pretty different from the other songs, but it still retains that Chastity Belt feel.

“IDC” is a fun bratty song:

Is it cool not to care / I got drunk out of boredom / I did not want to be there /
I don’t care

Its a bit too long even at just 3 minutes with the endless repetitions of the title, but I like the way the end has the tape slow down all distorted.

The final song is the great “Time to Go Home.”  It builds slowly with slow chords and Julia’s laconic delivery.  But for the chorus, there’s a terrific pick up in speed and a great haunting backing vocal “oooh.”  The song is short but builds nicely to a crashing album end.

Between the two albums there’s a terrific diversity of materials.

[READ: March 25, 2016] “Day of Judgment”

I love Simon Rich.  He cracks me up every time.

The Messiah comes down to Earth in the middle of Manhattan.  He tells the world that everyone is saved and their pain is ending.

And then he gets ready to take questions.  He points to Chris Matthews and tell him to ask a question.  And the same with Anderson Cooper.  And then he looks around and points and says “You have a question, Al Roker?”  And there’s a hushed silence over the crowd, because he was pointing to Al Sharpton.The rest of the piece is a hilarious look at Jesus backpedaling from this racist comment.

He digs himself deeper into a hole and keeps making things worse.

The ending has an unexpected twist, but the real humor comes in imagining Jesus making this mistake and then acting all too human to try to fix it.