FADED PAPER FIGURES - RELICS

I kinda stumbled across this group on youtube one day.  I was listening to some music and one of their songs came up next in rotation before I had the chance to move on to something else I wanted to hear.  Needless to say, I stuck around, listened to the song and immediately went to Discogs and ordered the CD.  

Although this group would probably be lumped in the electronic music genre, they're actually more like Little Dragon in the sense they combine synths with acoustic instruments and drums.  Little Dragon tends to be more jazz oriented, while Faded Paper Figures is more blues based traditional rock.

There was much cause for concern when I heard 'Not The End Of The World (Even As We Know It)'.  It's the third track on the album and seems to be a response to the song REM released back in the 80's, 'It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)'.  It even copies the vocal arrangement from the original.  I wasn't happy to see that as I would normally interpret songs like this as unimaginative and annoying.  It's just different enough to give it some credibility, but not by much.  However, the rest of the album is quite stellar and I'm very happy with it.

The first song that strikes me as utterly beautiful is 'Lost Stars'.  This song has the most wonderful melody and harmonizing.  It's truly magnificent.  However, it's not the best track on the album.  In my opinion there are two that are simply stunning.  The first is 'On The Line'.  The acoustic guitar on this track is absolutely perfect combined with the electronic keyboards and vocals.  There's a strong build that goes on just slightly too long towards the end of the song, but it resolves itself nicely and in the end, it's a great tune.

It's followed by what I consider to be the best song on the album and not surprisingly, the track I originally heard by the band is 'Spare Me'.  Oddly enough, this song strikes me in a number of ways.  I won't presume to know a lot about this group, but they have a few lines in this song that make me wonder if they were LDS and left the church at some point.  Living in Utah, you get a great deal of exposure to the church and its teachings.  You also get a lot of exposure to arguments for and against the church.  I recently read an argument against the church compiled by a gentleman and many of the points he brings up as he presents his case show up in this song.

The tune discusses pre-Columbian steel claimed by the LDS church to have existed in North American before it was brought over by the Europeans.  It also mentions the lack of geographical evidence for the cities and places mentioned in the Church's book of scripture, the Book Of Mormon with the line, "Geographically tied to some place you can't find, please, spare me".  They also mention the seer stones the founder of the LDS church used to translate the book from ancient gold plates they believe were given to the prophet from God.  But it's the chorus that really grabs my attention...

"You said some gorgeous things,
But only half the time
only half the time,
I lived your gorgeous dream,
For only half a life
only half a life"

It's this line more than any other that makes me believe this is a song written about losing your belief in your church and leaving that faith.  Although I believe it's referring specifically to Mormonism, you can interpret it with any loss of faith.

The rest of the album maintains the solid material using a male and female vocalist to interplay and create lovely harmonies.  I can't believe I didn't know this group before hearing that song.  A little online research has shown they have other albums out and I will start adding them to my collection as I think this band is wonderful!

So if you're looking for something new to sink your ears in, Faded Paper Figures may be just the swab you need to clean your aural ports.  My final words:  SPARKLING PIXIE DUST MUSIC YOU CAN FLY WITH!

FADED PAPER FIGURES - RELICS
01. Breathing
02. Wake Up Dead
03. Not The End Of The World (Even As We Know It)
04. Lost Stars
05. Fellaheen
06. On The Line
07. Spare Me
08. Who Will Save Us Now? 
09. Horizons Fall
10. Real Lies
11. What You See
12. Forked Paths

HINDU LOVE GODS - HINDU LOVE GODS

Hindu Love Gods are a band made up of Warren Zevon and members of REM.  The disc is essentially a collection of covers Zevon recorded with the band during sessions for one of his albums.  The music is blues influenced rock.  And it draws heavily from American blues standards.

The biggest hit from the record and the reason I bought the thing in the first place is the cover of 'Raspberry Beret' by Prince And The Revolution.  But I'll discuss that in greater detail in a bit.  First off, this isn't an album I've paid a lot of attention to after I listened to it the first time.

The first two tracks are both covers of songs Robert Johnson made famous back in the 1930's.  They're followed by the cover of Prince's 'Raspberry Beret' which is an ok version, but doesn't come anywhere near as exciting and fulfilling as the original.  Zevon's vocals are strained and he doesn't seem to have the timing the lyrics require to sound convincing.  Still, it's interesting to hear Prince covered by rock and blues musicians.  And it's nice to hear this song get attention for being more than just a standard pop song.

The next song, 'Crosscut Saw' is an old Delta-blues standard from the 1940's.  The next track, 'Junko Pardner' is an American Blues number from the 1950's.  'Mannish Boy' is also a 1950's Blues standard and was made famous by Muddy Waters.  'Wang Dang Doodle' is from 1960.

'Battleship Chains' is another more modern song.  Recorded in 1986 by The Georgia Satellites, it was barely cold before the Hindu Love Gods covered it and brought it back to the light of day.

'I'm A One Woman Man' is actually a country hit from the 1960's.  'Vigilante Man' is the product of Folk hero, Woody Guthrie.

So basically, you have a collection put together of songs that at one time or another were the standards for the genre of music they represented.  Although the arrangements don't really stand out much on this recording, the tracks were probably very exciting live.  Especially if you were familiar with the originals.

I'm not sure what to make of this disc.  I listened to it again probably for the second time since I actually bought it back in the 90's to prepare for this review and frankly, there's nothing here to bring me back to the disc anytime soon.  It's a cool cover of 'Raspberry Beret' but it's by no means the best cover of a Prince song and it's not enough to make me want to listen to the album over and over.  In the end, this will go back on the shelf and be part of a Prince cover collection I'll never really bother finishing.

There's a part of me that thinks it's cool this disc exists.  But unless you're a huge Warren Zevon fan or a huge REM fan, there's very little to get excited about here.  My final words:  SKIP IT, DOWNLOAD THE TRACKS YOU ACTUALLY WANT, BUT SKIP IT.  

HINDU LOVE GODS - HINDU LOVE GODS
01. Walkin' Blues
02. Travelin' Riverside Blues
03. Raspberry Beret
04. Crosscut Saw
05. Junko Pardner
06. Mannish Boy
07. Wang Dang Doodle
08. Battleship Chains
09. I'm A One Woman Man
10. Vigilante Man