Customer Reviews

Up From Below

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When it's time to name the Song of the Year, list-makers who don't put "Home" in their Top Five may come to feel...sheepish.

That's because there's a medicine show coming your way, guaranteed to cure whatever ails you. And the best service someone like me can provide is to prepare you for it. That's simple: you're going to dance. Pretty much from minute one. With whomever you're with. With strangers. And with a massive, how-did-this happen grin on your face.

Maybe you could know a bit more. Like: there is no "Edward Sharpe" in the 9-to12-member band that that calls itself Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. Alex Ebert. the lead singer, looks like a guy who's just back from an ashram in India: underfed, long hair up in a bun, loose white shirt and pants, and bare feet. The female lead singer is so enthusiastic and awake --- a knockout in a thrift-shop dress, cardigan sweater and running shoes --- that you can't take your eyes off her. "A beautiful woman," Proust wrote, "is an invitation to a happiness she alone can fulfill." That is Jade Castrinos.

I love everything about this crew --- its large cast, its back story, and, most of all, its simple formula for happiness.

Okay, so the lyrics are mostly unabashed cornball ("Alabama, Arkansas/ I do love my Ma and Pa/ But not as much as I do love you"). I love how the song starts with a whistled echo of an Ennio Morricone theme from a Clint Eastwood western. I love the band and its soloists. Most of all, I'm a sucker for the refrain: "Home, let me come home/ Home is wherever I'm with you."

I have read the reviews, and it's the same deal in every city --- Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros are a traveling Woodstock, a throwback to the great lost days when bands thought of themselves as families and concerts were foaming whirlpools of joy.

Who are they? How did they happen? What do they mean?

Pass the peace pipe, kids, and I'll tell you a story that may make you --- depending on your age --- nostalgic or jealous.

We start with Alex Ebert, lead singer of a band called Ima Robot. He is cynical and negative, drunk on a daily basis. Desperate to be someone else, he breaks up the band, leaves his girlfriend for a small apartment with a blow-up mattress and joins Alcoholics Anonymous. A year later, Ebert has written many pages about Edward Sharpe, who was "sent down to Earth to heal and save mankind --- but he kept getting distracted by girls and falling in love."

Then, in downtown Los Angeles, he meets Jade Castrinos. They "hit it off and made a run for freedom." They start writing songs. They acquire a school bus and a band.

Want yet another reason to mourn Heath Ledger? He gives the band seed money to record a CD. Which they do --- using a 24-track tape machine from 1979 and bargain-basement reels of 2-inch tape." In July of 2009, the launch party for "Up from Below" was, unsurprisingly a benefit, with the money going to help the Gulu Widows Group of Uganda start a farm to sustain their community. And then they went on the road....

The young `uns and the folks who missed it first time around know hippies only as caricatures. Ebert's much closer to the real deal: "If we go to your town, I can imagine a time when we're rolling up to a parking lot and parking the bus and setting up the stage and the bleed from the audience to us, it's just not even there. It's like a river, you know?"

Audiences do know. And they jump in. Ebert: "The night I went into the crowd [at the Echo] and everybody was singing, you could almost feel their hearts."
That's pretty much any night for this band. Because what it offers is not being sold anywhere else --- a reversion to childhood. He's a child and she's a child, and they have a childish belief that their love will last forever, and the band feels the same way. That's a lot of permission on one stage.

Enduring love, a family of friends, a place that felt like home --- when I stumbled out of college into the Real World, I craved nothing more. Escapism? Maybe. But also a recognition that the Real World isn't the only one, that there's a door over here, and all you have to do is open it to feel the freedom you had as a kid.
See Edward Sharp, if you can. But for the sake of your soul, at least spend a buck on the MP3 download of "Home" and keep it near you. Because there's always a psychic emergency ahead. And if there's a better First Aid kit, I don't know it.

I heard the song "Home" on a mix tape and really liked it. It was fun and sweet and had an intricate simplicity I really enjoyed. I got the full album and it starts off amazing. Lots of interesting and catchy tunes. About half way through though, this album loses all steam. It gets thin and boring and somber. The happiness that made me pick the album up disappeared. I found myself wondering how much longer the songs were because they were just dragging on forever. To me, this would be a great album if it was cut in half. It feels like the first chunk is fun and original, and the latter is just unneeded filler.

This album makes me so happy. I can't help but bounce and smile to all of this album. The happiness that come to you through the album is really infectious! Great sunny day music! I've never seen them live but I'm going to at Electric Forest Festival this July. I can't wait! I've heard they are amazing live. I hope they are as good live as they are on the album!

This is an incredibly good record.

I hesitated to buy it. How can a band produce something like "Home" and not have the rest of the record sound like repitition or duds? "Home" sounds like a perfect candidate for a "one-hit wonder" band.

But that is not the case.

This record is full of invention and wonder; originality combined with allusions to other masters. I hear so many sounds that make me go "who is that like?" and if I remember I think "no - it is reminiscent, but not a copy". And they just layer it all on you, over and over, track after track. Creating their own original experience.

Incredible. Thanks, Brooke, for turning me onto this.

Oh - and the car radio or YouTube or little things stuck in your ears do not do justice. You need to hear it play (loud) where the drum pounds through your chest and the piano rings in your ears and the horns blare in your face and you dance and smile.

Just wish there was even one more song on the CD that has the same flavor to it as the hit "Home". The female lead vocalist on that song is great, wish her voice was featured to a greater extent throughout the CD.

If you like bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, Pink Floyd, and are looking for something new, then this one is for you. Interesting and varied song arrangements. Strong retro feel yet fresh original sound all their own. Atmospheric and haunting at times, highly recommended.

So I think others already commented on the joyful and fun music. Five stars for that.

But unfortunately, the sounds quality is awful. Instruments somewhere in a cloud, imprecise base, voices seem to be recorded from meters away. On top of that, highly compressed.
So it is good for creating a 96kbit MP3 out of it and listen in the bus, but it hurts listening on anything larger than cheap computer speakers.

So PLEASE Ed, get some sound engineer knowing what (s)he is doing. Then it is fun listening.
Low rating because of sound quality.

Positive simplistic music which achieves a melancholy mix of bittersweet sentiment without resorting to cheesy-ness. The best parts are the the interaction between the male and female singers, creating an intimate yet playful tone. A fun yet deep album. Should be a good live show at Electric Forest 2011!

I can't express how original and good this CD is. And their shows outrageous. This is the best live show I have seen in a long long time. I would say in my top 5 of all times. I saw them at Coachella and Outsidelands, and more recently at a taping of Jimmy Kimmel. If you can see these guys at a small venue, don't pass up the chance. Alex, seems like one of the most down to earth, comfortable in his own skin person I have ever seen performing. King Khan and the Shrines was up there as well. I took a group of Brazilians to Jimmy Kimmel who had never heard this band before and they absolutely loved the music and the show. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic zeros are a great band, with great music, and great people. They are what is right in the music industry. Lyrical content is solid, positive, and they bring tons of energy and good vibes through in their music. My favorite line from my favorite song Up From Below on the album "Drugs, drugs, drug me down. Killing light, killing sound." This song is just an anthem that is oozing with revelation. They build it up so well live too.

I have read some of the negetive comments here and I disagree, obviously because of the 5 star rating. I think the sound is perfect for this album, it doesn't sound like cheap overdub after overdub too prevalant in most albums released today. I can somewhat understand about one commenter about the first few songs are good but the end of the album is filler. Although I don't agree I can understand this point of view. My advice to you is that you haven't listen carefully enough. The first few songs are definately the catchiest of the bunch, but the whole album is just a gem. But I can see the turning point in the album on Desert Song, it is an intense song that shifts the albums feel. It is placed quite nicely in the middle of the album. Om Nashi Me is perfect closing song for the album and they seem to play this song last every time I have seen them. Believe me, you will be singing this song all the way to your car in the parking lot. This album is amazing, do yourself a favor and purchase, download it, whatever. If not you will be missing out on the next best thing. Also, see them live. I first discovered this band just before Coachella, and the show was not that crowded. Then Home and Janglin were songs on car commercials. 5 months later at Outsidelands the show was packed. I was so far back it was unbelievable. It didn't hurt that these guys are pretty popular in San Francisco. But check them out now before they blow up and you are sitting in the nose bleeds at Wrigley field pissed of that you are so far back, someone spilt beer on your shoes and you didn't listen to my advice sooner.

I originally heard this band on Letterman and I found myself humming the song home for the next week. Eventually I knew I realized I would just have to purchase it. Needless to say, I've not been disappointed. Home has a Johnny Cash/June Carter feel with the enthusiasm of Rockabilly-meets-Phish. It's just plain fun! The rest of the album is kind of all over the board, but in general very enjoyable.