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Plushgun - Pins & Panzers
- Another slow, relatively poppy and uplifting while depressing album is, initially, Pins & Panzers. But like most first impressions, they tend to be wrong, as Plushgun's second album is an intelligent, well-sculpted, and fascinating look into the semi-emotional and semi-political art landscape that the band has created.
Weaving between speakings on a fascist police state, dancing in minefields with bottles of whiskey and, somehow, still loving you, “Dancing on a Minefield” does just that, carefully weaving between melodic mines and treacherous, gentle string selections, climaxing when the narrator inevitably takes a misstep and trips into the explosive and strangely beautiful finale. It's a great, if surprising, journey.
Thematically, Pins & Panzers is difficult to gauge, transitioning between moments of profound sensitivity and desperate, last-ditch attempts at regaining a lost love; “I like you, maybe I'm just like you, holding onto something that we know we cannot hold . . . I walk the line like Johnny Cash, I made the bus in seconds flat, I called your line too many times, I'm not obsessed, just impolite,” from the third track of the album, “Just Impolite.” Touching and a little bit creepy, uplifting and bittersweet, beautiful and always, always tragically flawed.
But as with all things artistic, the flaws serve only to highlight the wonderments found within; although often the sad, somber sound of Plushgun is tinged with typical post-mallpunk emo soundscapes, it showcases brilliant song writing when the band achieves a real and unified beauty in songs like “Let Me Kiss You (And Then I'll Fade Away).” This track blends uplifting vocals, sweet and short, carefully-chosen banjo riffs and a coordinated clapping of hands that forces an instant smile – until you listen more carefully to the lyrics, which speak of a love that has gotten away and he wishes for just one more moment; “All my memories are just a single frame, and if we could take a picture, of just one more day, let it be today, and maybe I'll say – let me kiss you now, and I'll fade away.”
Pins & Panzers' interweaving of electronic, ethereal scapes is a testament that this form of music – heartfelt, genuine and often sad music – is not merely dead, no, not merely fading, no – but rather in full bloom, as the trials and tribulations of man, through his sorrows and joys, will always provide the most effective backdrop for solid artistic merit. While uplifting and encouraging and easily an album advisable to the broken-hearted, the constant twinge of remorse and regret keep its feet firmly planted on the earth while the exuberant melodies ensure that its head stays high in the clouds.
Reviewer: Daniel A. Russ
new
Reviewer's Rating: 8.5
Reader's Rating: 10.00
Reader's Votes: 7
Added: 17-Nov-2008
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