The past two Friday's have graced us with two record releases that couldn't have come at a better time. Fiona Apple's Fetch The Bolt Cutters made a daring escape from her home laboratory and The Homeless Gospel Choir gave us the gift of This Land Is Your Landfill.
I have had both records in heavy rotation since I jammed them onto my computer. Vinyl for Fetch The Bolt Cutters is due out in July, at the earliest, and I'm still waiting for my preorder of This Land Is Your Landfill to ship out from A-F Records. Due to the end times plague shutting everything down, it might be a while before either album is on my turntable. That is a minor annoyance since I prefer to have liner notes and lyric sheets handy when I make poor attempts at reviewing records.
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As far as I'm concerned, Fetch The Bolt Cutters might just be the best Punk record of the year. And if, after listening to it, you don't think Fiona Apple put out a Punk record, give it another listen and read up on how it was recorded. Ms. Apple recorded the album at home, at times using the walls and floorboards as percussion. From beginning to end, this record is not messing around and has the skill and attitude to back it up.
Since Fiona Apple operates outside of the tour/record/tour/record cycle, it's been eight years since her last album, The Idler Wheel... She seems to use that time to be very deliberate in every word and sound chosen to assemble her songs. At times, the songs butt up against each other rhythmically but still fit together as a whole and more than once I found myself thinking, “I have no idea what just happened but it works for me.”
Lyrically, I wouldn't say that the knives are drawn so much as the samurai sword has been honed to hair splitting sharpness and aimed in the general direction of the world around us. Fiona Apple is tearing into society with so much more “Fuck you” in her words than any “Punk” record that I've heard in the past few years. The debacle that led to a second sexual predator being appointed to the Supreme Court and scumbags such as Louis C.K. were definitely fuel for the songwriting fire.
My favorite line of the record is “I told you I didn't want to go to this dinner” from “Under The Table.” It made me recall all of the times an ex would take me to parties and other events that would require me to act like a well adjusted human being so she could show me off to her friends. Instead of reacting when someone would inevitably say something stupid, I would end up sitting quietly and biting my tongue until it would bleed.
Fetch The Bolt Cutters is some of Fiona Apple's best work and she keeps getting better from one record to the next.
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After hearing a handful of the new Homeless Gospel Choir songs live and in person over the past year or so, it was great to finally get to listen to them all together and hear what Derek Zanetti had envisioned with This Land Is Your Landfill. I knew our collective ears were in for something special but the nicest person in Punk Rock exceeded my expectations with this new record.
The production was once again aided and abetted by Chris #2 of Anti-Flag. The dynamic that they have together is incredible. #2 seems to know how to push Derek to get the best out of him while also knowing when to get out of the way to let Derek be Derek.
In addition to writing songs about trying to hold it together in the face of mental health issues and having an awareness of the world around him, Derek Zanetti has started taking aim at the internet and social media culture. And it is odd that being on the internet is how we have to operate now that we're all stuck in quarantine and punk shows are cancelled until who knows when.
As per usual with every Homeless Gospel Choir record, there is at least one song on This Land Is Your Landfill that calls me on my bullshit. “Figure It Out” hit me hard. The song is more or less about the shit sandwich that some of us have to eat when faced with the futility of the Amerikan Dream.
One of the anonymous internet complaints that This Land Is Your Landfill has been handed is that it's not “Punk” enough. Maybe the folks that heard the record that way need to broaden the spectrum of what they consider “Punk.” Or, to paraphrase Bill Hicks, take a look around them and the world in which we live and try shutting the fuck up with their meaningless rules and gatekeeping. But then again, I am the guy that just wrote that the new Fiona Apple record was punk as fuck.
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I have had to be careful while listening to both of these records since I'm walking around with a brain injury's worth of trauma and depression while locked in solitude. I usually have to have a Motorhead or Beastie Boys chaser immediately following to help straighten me out because both Fetch The Bolt Cutters and This Land Is Your Landfill have a lot of weight to them.
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