This record will have rough and solid sex with your ears. After listening to it you will be sweaty, tired and completely satisfied. Cheaper than a hooker and disease-free too! This record will make you happier than a junky on inhalents.
No strong feelings either way on this baby. It's got it's good points but it's got it's bad ones too. In the end it just all kind of levels out. Mediocrity is the key word here.
Bad record. Don't you ever fucking do that again! Now I want an apology.
Destined to leave you feeling like you were aurally raped. Your ears have been sullied and violated by the most disgusting of musical perverts. You may even need an abortion after hearing this.



 
The Good Life
Lovers Need Lawyers [EP]
Saddle Creek

It's painfully obvious that Tim Kasher lets his less inspired ideas trickle down to his side project, The Good Life. But then again, even Kasher's less inspired ideas have merit. The new EP from The Good Life, Lovers Need Lawyers, is a six song return to the depressed, self-deprecating world of frontman, Tim Kasher. This time around, he's ditched most of the electronic backing that had been The Good Life's staple in the past for more conventional instruments. For those of you scratching your heads, wondering, "what the hell is the difference between The Good Life and Cursive then?" well not a lot now, I guess. They seem to be a less intense version of Cursive with a poppier sound. That means less screaming on Tim's part and less distortion on his guitar's part.

On "Leaving Omaha", a country influenced song (complete with steel guitar), Kasher chronicles the love/hate relationship he has had with his hometown throughout his life. The song sees Tim on the day of his high school graduation, with all the excitement of leaving town to go to a university. It also visits the bitterness he feels upon returning home, and takes a late night drive to visit a friend who made it out of Omaha. Tim finally follows a lover to Portland and "made his escape". In the aftermath of that, Tim states "Omaha, you never looked so good". "Entertainer" sounds like a Cursive b-side, with pretty much the same instrumentation and vocal style as anything off of The Ugly Organ. The song is a diatribe against the idea that he could never be a real artist because he's a rock musician. He states that his job is to just to "keep the customers drunk".

Kasher has always been his strongest when he writes his Cursive concept albums, a la The Ugly Organ and Domestica. Well, on the title track, Kasher sets up a trial scene comparable to the last song on Pink Floyd's definitive concept album The Wall: Kasher is "on trial" for allegedly cheating on his lover. In what probably turns out to be the strongest song (lyrically at least), his character remembers going to a bar and talking to a woman until last call, when they both leave in search of more alcohol. Tim protests that he's innocent, that he "still went home alone". The backing track includes very Cure-esque music with verses that are set over stark, keyboards and build up to a shouting, pulsing chorus. On the closing track, "For Love of the Song" Tim once again offers a self-mockery of his songwriting skills, like much of The Ugly Organ. He explains how he wrote some of his other songs in the past and basically tells us he's just going through the motions with lyrics such as, "I thought I'd start this simple song, with something you could sing along, like na na na na/ But then I felt a bit cliché, I started 'Beaten Path' that way." This refers to a song off of The Good Life's last full length Black Out.

All in all, this is a pretty good EP and probably well worth the 8 bucks you'll pay for it, but I've just come to expect so much from Tim Kasher after the last Cursive album and this EP just seems to pale in comparison to his past accomplishments. But also, I think maybe Kasher's shtick may get a little tired if he doesn't change up his subject matter. I just don't know how many more songs he can write about his divorce, or the self pitying songs-about-songs that seem to have been a trend since Cursive's last EP.

-austin
4/20/02
 

 
The Good Life
Black Out
Saddle Creek


A couple weeks before it came out, I noticed that Saddle Creek would be releasing The Good Life’s sophomore release, Black Out. I was so enamored by their first attempt, Novena on a Nocturn, that I searched out the track listing and downloaded Black Out that night. Unfortunately, the elements that I loved so much on Novena are very sparse on this new record. The soul-baring lyrics present on the first album are substituted for choruses like “You do you do you do you do you do you do” on The Beaten Path and talk of “titty bars” on Early Out the Gate. Odd, misplaced electronic noises and 80s pop/rock drumbeats replace the mellow drumming and soothing electronic beats of the first record. Theses noises make me feel like I'm playing Galaga while listening to a Cursive album. The only redeeming factor of this album is Tim Kasher’s (of Cursive fame) gut-wrenching vocals that make a drunken trip to the local strip joint sound like a trip to his mother’s funeral. There are a couple decent songs when the band runs out of 80s video game noises to use, but they definitely don’t make this CD worth buying. If you can’t wait until the next Cursive release, go buy Novena on a Nocturn and pretend this record doesn’t exist.
-jeff
4/13/02