HYLI Vol. LXII - Songs: Ohia and The Human Abstract
Patrick sends Andy some alt-country from the aughts and Andy sends Patrick some metalcore from the early 2010s.
Patrick is back this week! Did you all miss him? I had some fantastic guests (also some great ones in the bullpen that didn’t get an at-bat) and wrote about some fantastic metal albums and got to do basically whatever I wanted so I’m not really sure I missed him. Lol jk I missed my good bud and I can’t wait to find a way to bug him again (Patrick: mission accomplished with the last sentence). I took my 2-year-old to see the Mario movie the other week and she sat through the entire thing. The movie was whatever but it was a 5/5 experience. I will be seeing every age-appropriate movie with her from now on.
Pat you can add more if you’d like okay thanks (Patrick: I’m good and leaving this in)!
Songs: Ohia - The Magnolia Electric Co.
Patrick: Listen, man. I’m going to be real with the HYLI crew here: usually, I try to pick stuff knowing Andy will like it or hoping there’s an off-chance he will, even if it’s not deep in his bag. I did not do that this week. I’ve grown to enjoy writing about music again with this little newsletter and I selfishly picked this album this week because a) the 20th anniversary was while I was gone on parental leave and b) I fucking love this record and wanted to write about it. If Andy doesn’t like it he can grow up & buzz off (Andy: I respect your position).
There are so very few better intro tracks in recorded music for me than “Farewell Transmission.” There was a story going around when the anniversary happened that the song was recorded in one take. Get the fuck out of town. Jesus Christ. The vocal take on the song is about as good as vocals get for me and my guy ripped it off the first go. Lyrics don’t always matter but when they do, they really do, and there are so many lines from this song that are etched into my otherwise smooth brain. “Now we'll all be brothers of the fossil fire of the sun / Now we will all be sisters of the fossil blood of the moon.” Banger. “All the great set-up hearts / All at once start to beat.” Incredible. “I'll streak his blood across my beak / Dust my feathers with his ashes / Feel his ghost breathing down my back.” Fuck. Goddamn gorgeous beautiful song. I’ve said all this and failed to mention maybe thee most singable and iconic slide-guitar riff to me (Andy: This was a legit great song).
I’m not trying to minimize the other songs by focusing so much on “Farewell Transmission.” It’s just a career-defining type of song. A lot of the others here would be among the best in any other artists’ catalog but finish up second-best here because of how good that song is. “Just Be Simple” has a level of complexity in the writing that outweighs the best of many others; “Almost Was Good Enough” hits about as close to a Crazy Horse song without Neil Young as anyone got in the decades since his prime; “The Old Black Hen” and “Peoria Lunch Box Blues” feature fantastic guest-vocal performances (Andy: do they though); and “Hold On Magnolia” closes the album out about as well as it opens up, which is to say perfectly.
I Love this album. I Like the rest of Jason Molina’s work but not quite to the same level of regard. It’s all great but this album is incredible. It tears me up dude drank himself to death at 39. That’s six years older than I am. I’ve been having complicated feelings about my drinking, after going 9 months during my wife’s pregnancy without any booze. It’s been dangerous for me in the past, leading to nights of waking up in the hospital not knowing how I got there. Fortunately, it feels like I have a “positive” relationship with it in the month since starting to casually drink again with “boundaries” and “limits” to how much I’ll have kind of for the first time in my life. I have a newborn 1-month-old baby. It fucking crushes me thinking about leaving her as a 6-year-old because my drinking got the best of me (Andy: the kids rewire your brain and it’s weird. Biology man). I’ve been listening to this album and Jason’s music a lot in the last month and it fucks me up that someone this talented is gone, but what a legacy he left behind. A Farewell Transmission, indeed. Hope You Like It.
Andy: I can always tell when Patrick is in a good mood because he gets good at writing and then drops like 600 words for his portion. When we started this newsletter we barely wrote one paragraph each. It is better now, you don’t need to go back and read the archives. I’m happy Patrick is back and I’m happy he is feeling it again.
I was really vibing with this album to start. As Patrick waxed poetic, “Farewell Transmission” is just an all-timer of a song. I was really encapsulated by this album until “The Old Black Hen” came on and I turned it off and didn’t listen again (Patrick: song rocks you little twerp). Thanks!
All joking aside, this album rules, minus that one song for me. I don’t particularly like the other song with guest vocals either. They just really don’t do it for me. Drop those two songs and this album is certified great. I wasn’t quite on board with “Hold On Magnolia” during my first listen but each subsequent listen showed me why I was wrong (Patrick: good).
Pat can continue to shotgun these singer/songwriter/indie/other-genre-terms albums at me, and most of them will flop, but man when one lands … it really lands (Patrick: mission accomplished). I’m not going to complain about the derangement of the ‘band’ being named Songs: Ohia or his next band being named Magnolia Electric Co. Pull it together. Great songs, great artwork
The Human Abstract - Digital Veil
Andy: I love this record. It came out at a time in my life when I was living in London and working for a music PR firm as part of a school internship program. I would read books on the bus on the way to work and listen to music while I had lunch in the park and took the tube home (Absolutely the way to live. Lack of quality public transportation is one of a million reasons America sucks ass) (Patrick: let the people hear your voice, comrade). This album is intensely linked with those memories.
The success of this album, for me, is attributed to the return of guitarist and primary songwriter A.J. Minette. Minette had left after the band’s first album to continue his education in classical music - something that is reflected in the songs on Digital Veil. He returned as producer for this album and eventually just wrote everything cause he is great. I am nowhere near smart enough to explain the intricacies of the music theory behind it but you can feel it on the album. Listen to this and then another “progressive metalcore” album and tell me you can’t sense it. Whatever Minette learned at classical music school elevated this into a classic.
I think I like this album more than most people. I’ve never really met someone who vibes with it as much as I do but that doesn’t stop me from recommending it when given the opportunity. I sent Patrick a song to make sure I wasn’t ruining his week and he seemed … sorta into it? So hopefully I didn’t ruin his week. Hope You Like It.
Patrick: So my boy Andy here used to run a metal/post-hardcore website in the late ‘00s/early ‘10s and I first “got to know” Andy by being a writer for that site despite living halfway across the country from him. This album reminds me so so so much of that website and time frame (Andy: Yes, same), despite never listening to it back then. Andy had super long hair back then (Andy: it is about twice as long now) (Patrick: I’ve seen you recently and I guess it doesn’t seem longer but that’s sick) and I can just imagine him whipping it around like a madman to this stuff. I really liked it. Fun drums, great singing, and sick riffs. What more is there to want?
Such a big aspect of the metalcore and Hot Topic post-hardcore of that era seemed to be mixing the clean singing with the screaming vocals. Underoath, Alexisonfire, Dance Gavin Dance … all those guys were doing it, as well as the lesser-known knockoffs. I don’t know if The Human Abstract uses two vocalists like some of those other bands or just one guy but “Complex Terms” is a great example of this that I really vibed with. “Antebellum” and “Faust” were also highlights for me. Some great screams in the former and an awesome riff in the latter. Dudes rock. (Andy: It was one guy, Travis Richter, of From First to Last fame).
This was a fun record. I think it would have been really huge for me if I heard it for the first time back then. I don’t know how much it’ll stick with me now and going forward but I had a lot of fun with it and totally get the appeal. I Liked It.