#1

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

This one's for Anne Frank.

     I'm left without words; I don't know how to describe this masterpiece. I don't believe it's possible.  No one can explain how this album is so good, nor can they explain how good it is.  It's completely surreal and poetic.  It uses obscured, riddled metaphors that are completely vague.  The grimy, busy sound rattles and thickens the air with a coarse texture.  Their sound is completely indescribable.

     NMH's unique, grimy sound is what makes them sound so surreal, and somehow natural.  The eccentric band was created by an eccentric that would later go on to create eccentric music, no, extraordinary, no, mind-blowing, amazing, unreal, beautiful, poetic, sexual music, and yes, eccentric.  It leaves me puzzled why people remember events such as the destruction of the Berlin Wall or the Napoleonic Era but not the release of this album; it's heresy, it's hypocrisy, it's insanity, it is pure ignorance.

     The beginning tracks, King of Carrot Flowers parts 1 - 3 rise and fall elegantly, flutter, slow down and speed up.  Other tracks such Two Headed Boy and Two Headed Boy part 2 are stripped down, beautiful, and deeply emotional, somber tracks which include the originality of folk music, though mangled by Jeff's nasally voice.  Tracks like Ghost and Holland, 1945 are upbeat and spastic, thumpy beats and fast acoustics engulf the salty atmosphere.  The entire album is a collage of strange and out-of-tune instruments.
     When the album finally comes to a close, wanting more sexual metaphors and love poems written to Anne Frank,  you are left in a puddle of tears, both yours and Jeff Mangum's.  You will realize that there are no other insane men to whisper vivid, sexual fantasies to you while playing a guitar, thinking of nothing but Anne Frank.  Nothing can fill this void, not even this album.  Listening to this album three times a day for eight months won't help, trust me, I would know...  ;_;

Imperial:   14/10
Metric:   10/10