For fans of Rilo Kiley, Cat Power, St. Vincent
File under a moment in a songwriter's shifting perspective
Feist, on her third album Metals, is full of dynamic outbursts. There's the chorus of austere, male shouts that punctuates "A Commotion", the towering, climactic swell of strings in "Anti-Pioneer", and plenty more folk-pop numbers that begin small but explode suddenly into stomping, hollering, densely peopled jamborees. Building on some ideas she first explored in The Reminder's lively take on the folk traditional "Sealion", Metals is a record animated with, as she out it, "the movement of a lot of humans." Though her least immediate album—it lacks The Reminder's pop showstoppers or the charm of Let It Die's restless genre-hopping—Metals is a vivid evocation of a place that touches on fittingly vast themes about nature, love, and life itself.
Nature imagery is everywhere: the serene meditation "The Circle Married the Line" escapes the busy squiggles of modern life ("I'll head out to horizon lines/ Get some clarity oceanside") by boiling down a sunset to its simplest geometric forms, while the gorgeous acoustic number "Cicadas and Gulls" takes flight: "The land and the sea/ Are distant from me/ I'm in the sky." Metals displays a shift in Feist's perspective as a songwriter; after The Reminder she's said she's now less interested in writing songs that could be read as intimate and personal but instead crafting lyrics that read almost like sparse proverbs. (She's likened some of the lines on Metals to "adages and morals that you find embroidered in junk shops.") The resulting tracks feel universal, and not unlike Bill Callahan's Apocalypse, in their attempts to use the contrast the elegance of the things around us with the weird, erratic ways of human beings.
A touring musician since her teens, Feist has spent the past 15 years more or less on the road, so it's hard not to read these lines as autobiographical. But the chorus brings in the universiality, applying that sense of restlessness to a healthy creative process: "When the flag changes colours/ The language knows." It's a fitting statement about Metals, and Feist herself—shifting between moments of repose and restless explorations of new frontiers.
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SHIPPING & PACKING INFO
All records are shipped using
bubble wrap and cardboard flats (plus extra shrink wrap over the bubble and
cardboard if I think the situation calls for it)—all enclosed in a secure LP
box that includes extra cardboard planks secured on the outside off each
corner. Shipment is clearly marked "fragile" on both sides.
Each
"loose" LP is shipped outside of the cover and packaged within a poly
bag. Records are notorious for tearing through these jackets during the
shipping process. Thus, many smaller labels ship records outside of the cover
in a poly bag to eliminate damage (and ultimately replacement costs).
Note that all boxsets are given extra special attention to arrive safe and sound through the mail.
Upon request, I can open any sealed record and ship it outside of the sleeve (both placed within a poly bag).
Unless damaged through the mail, any return postage must be paid by buyer. Purchases must be returned as delivered.
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A LITTLE 'BOUT US
Your
purchase goes toward the efforts of launching NIN9VOLT RECORDS?an
independent label of a couple of guys who love the Replacements, Drag the
River, ALL, Archers of Loaf, Sam Beam, Ryan Adams, Liz Phair, and small indie
labels like Polyvinyl, Topshelf, Run for Cover, Tiny Engines and many more.
We like smart, well-written lyrics and big guitars most of the time. But we can
dig Natalie Merchant singing "Verdi Cries" or Jay Som's "I Think
You're Alright". Or her cool-as-shit ditty to Rush... "Why'd
you wait...so long". One of us teaches high school English, the other is
imaginary. It just sounds less artificial and not so pompous to think people
care about one guy's taste. (But we are currently really digging Bridget
Kearney's (Lake Street Dive) new solo record Won't Let You Down.
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