Methodist Girls opens with Sloppy Love. For me this doleful beauty elicits a poignant depiction of our human hearts. How emotions get jostled from lover to lover. Eventually we grow jaded, lovelorn and even cynical. But we plod on hoping and searching for love, and at times we find it no matter how fleeting or lopsided.

The pluck and spring of Paulding Light arises and dances shyly … You were looking for something I didn’t have… and I was looking for something you didn’t have.

Temporary bleeds into the white cloth of our mortality reminding us to discard our clothing unremember prayers and skinny dip into the unexpected. Another round of Two Hearted Ale, right after I finish a shot of Jameson with the friends I bring in the weekend with. The song Smoke is unspooling and curling about my ears in a bar not unlike the ghosts bumming drinks and laughter in a favorite haunt near you.
 

 
And so Nathan sings on, his is a voice that isn’t so much unleashed as it is poured straight from an oaken cast centuries old. A voice in possession of a timbre blue as the depths of Lake Huron, glint of lighthouse shine and truthful as cold bitten winters. Most Birthdays unravels it’s ribbons and wrapping paper only to discover the offering is only as appreciated as the heart and hands which hold.

So, after the party is over, the smell of nicotine is a stale cologne upon the soft skin of a drunken lover. We lay beside them upon sweat stained sheets. And as they mumble something indecipherable yet endearing we trace the rusty watermarks on ceiling constellations with our eyes. The track 1993 isn’t so much a song as it is a sign post, a mile marker biding us to look back smile through the tears.

Family Photo

Will you dance with me in this family photo? Ring your arms in mine
and hold my head up high. Oh the music is so sweet and this family
photo is fading clean. But the memories have released bleeding tears
for all to see. My heart is open wide, could be the flash of time in my eyes.
Yes, things will never be the same and that’s who we’ll blame when the dusts
forgets our names.

One of things I love about Nathan is his ability to coin lyrics like Michigan miners once hauled copper out of the Upper Peninsula. In a time capsule measuring 2:07 across I find my hands tied and I am blindfolded by simple and precious beauty.

More than anyway life is about the furtherance of love. Live given and love taken. We all got the sickness and if we stop lying to ourselves we’ll cozy up the most immutable law of them all, love can heal all wounds.

Telephones is playing as the light is being sifted from the our Michigan sky the twin gods of time and miracle. The horizon is going all pale pink and watercolored orange. The clouds are buoyant and suffused with gun metal grays and edged with pure lit light. I pass wood shaded greenery and I realize July is the pinnacle of summer and it is all downhill from here on out. But right now, I got music to settle into, and right now I am alright with all of that.

Methodist Girls closes with the bonus track Brightly and like the rest of the gorgeous every person’s album we’re reminded to take the good and only the good. Everything else is a distraction and a unwanted burden. Yes, the good, the bad and the ugly of life happens to us all but..

I didn’t catch that sunset yesterday
I couldn’t find the time but it found me today
It kept reminding me of when you walked away
You were so beautiful but then you left just like a passing day

So now I’m left with all the stars for company
6,000,000 broken little hearts they comfort me
We’ll wait around just for another chance to see
The sun arise again to give us hope we need

Shining brightly in my eyes, you woke me up to realize
That these moments come and go just like the wind, the rain, the sun, and the snow

Tomorrow’s forecasted to be a cloudy one
And though I love the clouds that don’t sound too much fun
You might’ve said goodbye and told me we were done
This game is over but my life has just begun

Shining brightly in my eyes, you woke me up to realize
That these moments come and go just like the wind, the rain, the sun, and the snow

So go on and enjoy your life, it’s going pretty fast
In all of these relationships so few of them will last
Back then these days were future, soon they’ll be part of the past
So please just make the best of them oh girl that’s all I ask

Shining brightly in my eyes, you woke me up to realize
That these moments come and go just like the wind, the rain, the sun, and the snow.

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Who says loud agitated music isn’t beautiful or thought provoking? Not I. Although the lyrics of La Dispute aren’t always incendiary political affairs, they feel like it. What’s also readily apparent, is these guys don’t lack, well, rage or talent . However, the good thing about this band is that they channel all the bitterness and beauty of living into deeply emotional fare. Their new album Wildlife (out now via No Sleep Records) is filled with tales of trail and error, longing, love lost, and lots of boiling over angst aplenty. And through it all this five-piece tour de force from Grand Rapids, MI sound like a veritable punk-rock orchestra of sound. Each song is refined chaos, more than anything else, hitting you square in your chest. Leaving your pulse racing, your brow sweaty and your fist clenched. But what do you do after this just under an hour album cranks you up to 11? You thank your lucky stars for every little ounce of joy you can eke out of life. Peace.

P.S. Big shout out to my brotha from another motha Kyle S. for whispering this in my ear.

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