Amusement Parks on Fire: Out Of The Angeles
Amusement Parks on Fire: Out of the Angeles
I fear that I’m becoming like my father in more ways than I’d rather admit. I can deal with looking like him. I learned that it’s ok that we act alike. I know it’s genetics to blame that we have the same sense of humour, dry as it may be. But one thing in particular compounds the list of things that keep me lying awake in bed at night; our shared nostalgia for music that fell from the public eye years before. I use to make fun of my old man for his music tastes. He is still listening to aged bands such as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and The Flying Burritto Brothers [I should note that while researching FBB for that link I learned Gramm Parson's was the front man... Points for that.] But now I find myself reminiscing for bands long since past [The Jesus & Mary Chain, Ride, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Dinosaur Jr., etc...]. I listen to a lot of music, but I always find myself going back to old favorites. Maybe that’s why Amusement Parks on Fire is appealing to me. It’s new music that has all the energy and feel of a Shoegazer era long since past.
Amusement Parks on Fire came into the music scene in 2005 with their self-titled record. Despite limited listener exposure, critics largely hailed this album as a reminder of what made Shoegazer so damn good in the first place. Now with their sophomore full release [their first release with a full band], they didn’t try to re-invent themselves on this album. Blistering multi-tracked guitars, skyward synths, reverb-soaked vocals; It’s what made their first album so listenable in the first place. It comes together to make an album I lose myself in. Whether it’s blue shifting down the freeway late at night, drinking a beer on the couch, or coding with my headphones on; I’m somewhere entirely else.
This albums is excellent for anyone who wants it loud but needs a melody to be infused in it too. Amusement Parks on Fire seem to make albums designed to be listened to in their entirety. There are single-worthy tracks, but as a whole everything flows together as one uplifting piece. Heavy guitars & hammering drums surround you in a wall of noise without suffocating you under their weight. The strings and the synths making the album sound more like it’s flying.
Is it breaking some new musical boundary? Probably not. Does that discredit it’s place on my list of the best albums of 2006? Hell no. It’s building on a style that got lost somewhere. Maybe it had it’s time & place, but it’s good to see echoes or reflections or whatever you want to call it in something new.
Maybe I’m clinging on to a time that has since passed. I probably sound like one of those old guys blathering on about how music just isn’t what it use to be. Or maybe I just get nostalgic for music that had a place in my life.
Maybe my old man is cooler than I had thought…
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