#3
American Football - American Football
American Football is the first and only studio album, self titled after the emo/ indie-rock band, American Football. The band's lead singer and guitarist, Mike Kinsella, has played a role in many other bands after the departing of American Football. Despite the incredible short life of the band, their debut album has gained critical acclaim from many people, being marked as a truly inspirational and motivating. When I had first heard this album with a friend, we both experienced an odd, mutual feeling from it. We described it as "feeling nostalgia for an event that has never occurred". Each song is a poem, short and sweet, with only a stanza or two of romantic, passionate lyrics. The titles of every song foreshadows a story, a story that is unknown and can be perceived in many different ways. Every element, every instrument, every inhale and exhale in the album has a chilling power to it: the still image of a comforting, old home featured on the cover, the yearning young voice of Kinsella's, the poetic, depressing, obscure lyrics, everything folds in on each other to oddly portray a sense of relatability. The quick flicks and whisks of snares, the silence between verses being caressed occasionally by the company of a mourning trumpet, and the rising and falling, accelerating breaths of the instruments.... all of the songs are expressive and overwhelmingly passionate; it's hard to pick out a specific song since they all share the same straining love and doleful memory. American Football is an album you have to experience for yourself, as it is difficult to describe with words other than "tormentingly depressing". After years of relistening to this album, there remains only one, true way I can explain this album, and it's represented, not with adjectives, but with an event. An event I have never encountered, an event that, most likely, very few people have experienced, though many can imagine the heart-stopping coldness you receive from the thought of such an event.
"It's the summer after we all graduate high-school. You and all of your friends that have stuck with you for those years decide to meet by a small fire on a chilly summer's night. You all reminisce, laughing, crying, enjoying the night. As time passes, the silence spacing the conversations slowly increases. The silence grows cold and dark, the only light coming from the faint embers of the originally roaring flames as the darkness slowly, very slowly returns to day. You and your friends decide not to disturb one another, as you have all realized that these are the very last moments that you will all be together, that no matter how hard you'll all try, in the remaining, many years of your life, that you all will never be as happy as when you were struggling through high-school together; the only long term friends you will ever have will be in your childhood, and one simple event completely washes them out of your life, but not your memory of them."
Imperial: 13/10
Metric: 9/10
American Football - American Football
American Football is the first and only studio album, self titled after the emo/ indie-rock band, American Football. The band's lead singer and guitarist, Mike Kinsella, has played a role in many other bands after the departing of American Football. Despite the incredible short life of the band, their debut album has gained critical acclaim from many people, being marked as a truly inspirational and motivating. When I had first heard this album with a friend, we both experienced an odd, mutual feeling from it. We described it as "feeling nostalgia for an event that has never occurred". Each song is a poem, short and sweet, with only a stanza or two of romantic, passionate lyrics. The titles of every song foreshadows a story, a story that is unknown and can be perceived in many different ways. Every element, every instrument, every inhale and exhale in the album has a chilling power to it: the still image of a comforting, old home featured on the cover, the yearning young voice of Kinsella's, the poetic, depressing, obscure lyrics, everything folds in on each other to oddly portray a sense of relatability. The quick flicks and whisks of snares, the silence between verses being caressed occasionally by the company of a mourning trumpet, and the rising and falling, accelerating breaths of the instruments.... all of the songs are expressive and overwhelmingly passionate; it's hard to pick out a specific song since they all share the same straining love and doleful memory. American Football is an album you have to experience for yourself, as it is difficult to describe with words other than "tormentingly depressing". After years of relistening to this album, there remains only one, true way I can explain this album, and it's represented, not with adjectives, but with an event. An event I have never encountered, an event that, most likely, very few people have experienced, though many can imagine the heart-stopping coldness you receive from the thought of such an event.
"It's the summer after we all graduate high-school. You and all of your friends that have stuck with you for those years decide to meet by a small fire on a chilly summer's night. You all reminisce, laughing, crying, enjoying the night. As time passes, the silence spacing the conversations slowly increases. The silence grows cold and dark, the only light coming from the faint embers of the originally roaring flames as the darkness slowly, very slowly returns to day. You and your friends decide not to disturb one another, as you have all realized that these are the very last moments that you will all be together, that no matter how hard you'll all try, in the remaining, many years of your life, that you all will never be as happy as when you were struggling through high-school together; the only long term friends you will ever have will be in your childhood, and one simple event completely washes them out of your life, but not your memory of them."
Imperial: 13/10
Metric: 9/10
Metric: 9/10
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