Friday, June 8, 2007

First Listen: Portugal. The Man. - 'Church Mouth'

portugal. the man.
'church mouth'
released july 24, 2007/fearless records

it's always exciting when a record leaks that i really want to hear. portugal. the man was a surprise hit of 2006 for me, coming out of virtually nowhere (er,
alaska) to land at number 8 on my year end list with their 'waiter: you vultures!' disc. that cd was one of the most creative records i'd heard in quite some time..it was refreshing really. they didn't really sound like anything else that's out there right now (save the at the drive in/mars volta/blood brothers comparisons i think i made) and while they have a sound i admittedly generally would get annoyed by, iiiii for some reason don't. ANYWAY so this is their new cd, 'church mouth' and it's due out july 24 on fearless records, as mentioned up above thurr..and this is me listening for the very first time EVER!!!!! actually i pressed play before i even started writing this and have listened to a couple songs twice, but i doubt you really want to get into a petty spat about semantics, right? good, cause i don't either. ok. so. the first thing i notice right off the bat is the absence of the keyboard/electronic element that was all over the place on the last cd; this cd has a much more organic 'band' sound if you will. actually, as i listen, i notice they seem to have taken a turn stylistically as well. the frantic, slightly spazzy time signature changes have been replaced with a much more classic sound..there appears to be a huge classic rock (psychedelic, funk, soul as well) influence in effect here. think mars volta playing in a less obnoxious white stripes style covering ummm..zep and beatles songs. again, this is something i have no business liking, but i'm lovin it. they've still got some great melodies, the lyrics seem more focused on like..religion or politics but i can't really tell yet, and if i smoked weed this would probably be a great record to get high to. but how would i know, right?
420!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!11!!!
aiiiight, things seem to wrapping up here. the cd is almost over, plus i'm uber-hungry. sooo um. yeah.
all in all this cd seems pretty damn good and i'm impressed after this all important first listen. the last song even has a classic fade out. gotta love those fade outs. if i were a black dude in the 80s i think i totally would have wanted a high-top fade. ya know, kid n play style. or maybe rappy will smith before he went to live with his auntie and uncle in bel-aire.
the license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror.

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