Month: June 2023

Record #922: Alanis Morissette – Jagged Little Pill (1995)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

In which a Canadian teenybopper pop star turns into an eldritch demigod.

It’s always funny to me when the Rock and Roll Boys’ Club reacts to the rise of some young female rocker with upturned noses (see: Avril Lavigne, Olivia Rodrigo, Michelle Branch, Billie Eilish, etc) when one of the greatest rock albums of all time was released by the quintessential rock ingénue.  For as much as rock music postures itself as a man’s world, in 1995 Alanis Morissette (then twenty-one) laced up her Doc Martins and went toe-to-toe with the entire alt-rock landscape.

Nearly thirty years later, Jagged Little Pill remains as fierce and apocalyptic as ever. It’s a breakup album in the form of a military strike, offering proof to the old proverb that Hell hath no fury quite like this.

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Record #921: Frightened Rabbit – Pedestrian Verse (2013)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

For all my seemingly-encyclopedic knowledge of the musical landscape, I have a few glaring blind spots. There are musicians who have left indelible marks on the world that have left me unscathed. Bands with massive cult followings that I have ignored. Albums that have changed lives while I have moved on oblivious.

These omissions are numerous. But I get the notion that few are more glaring, foolish, and maybe even offensive than my ignorance of Frightened Rabbit, who for years has floated amorphously in a nebulous blob with the Mountain Goats, Mount Eerie, Lord Huron, and any other songwriter-heavy project with a full band name that my brain categorizes together because of their similar names.

But recently, a friend who is a fan learned of the Frightened-Rabbit-shaped hole in my heart and sought to fill it himself, ordering me a copy of their fourth record, Pedestrian Verse, which I gather is a dark horse fan favorite. And while it’s going to take time for me to absorb this record the way it’s meant to, it’s immediately apparent why the band is so beloved. Continue reading →

Record #920: The Kinks – Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

There’s maybe no band that captures the imagination of speculative music historians than the Kinks. In the early days of the British Invasion, they had a raw energy that propelled their songwriting beyond their peers. Many have made the claim that had they not been blacklisted by the American Federation of Musicians on their first US tour for the exact sort of destruction people loved the Who for a year later, they would have surpassed even the Beatles (I have made this before).

This could have destroyed a lesser band. Instead, The Kinks, led by brother duo Ray and Dave Davies, put their heads down and made several of the best pop rock albums in their native UK, not finding much success across the pond until “Lola” in 1970, when the ban had run its course.

It’s a personal policy of mine that if I find any of their records from this period in a record store, it’s an instant buy. It’s never steered me wrong before, and in the case of Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), it paid off exceptionally well.

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Record #919: Khamsin – What’s Left of Life? (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

In 2018, I was part of the team organizing Bloodline Fest here in South Bend. While we were talking to idle threat about playing, they asked if there was a space for their friends Khamsin, who they were touring with. And boy am I glad there was. They looked to be fresh out of high school, but as soon as they started playing, it brought me back to my own teenage years, playing a brand of introspective post-hardcore reminiscent of As Cities Burn, Brand New, mewithoutYou, and Beggars-era Thrice.

As strong as that initial performance was though, it barely scratched the surface of what they would achieve on their debut full-length, What’s Left of Life? Those same influences are present, but not derivative as much as an accent in their own voice. And they use that voice to tell a story of grief and loss that’s as raw as it is tender.

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