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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
4.5 stars.... excellent overview and introduction to OtR, February 9, 2007
Over the Rhine (named after the Cincinnati neighborhood where the band started in 1989) has issued 13 official albums (and a couple of fans-only albums) in its long history, including a 10th year anniversary album "Amateur Shortwave Radio" in 1999, covering live tracks from "Ten Years of Show Business". The band has gone through several label changes, and even more line-up changes. In the Over the Rhine universe, there is a clear devide before and after 1996, when the original foursome ceased, leaving creative control to the now husband and wife team of singer Karen Bergquist and primary songwriter Linford Dettweiler. This is the first attempt to capture the band's total studio album output.
"Discount Fireworks" (15 tracks, 71 min.) brings a generous sampling of the band's output. The majority of this compilation, issued by Back Porch, the band's label from 2001 through 2006, focuses on 3 albums: 1996's Good Dog Bad Dog (subsequenbtly re-released by Back Porch), 2001's Films for Radio, and 2003's Ohio, a double album considered by many as the band's crowning achievement. "Films for Radio" provides "Give Me Strength", a Dido-penned tune, as close as OtR came to mainstream succes, the majestic "The World Can Wait" (my 17 yr daughter's all-time fave OtR track), and "If Nothing Else". "Ohio" provides the aching "Suitcase", the single "Show Me" and the beautiful pensive title-track, just Karen on piano and vocals. "Good Dog Bad Dog" provides the classic "Latter Days" and "All I Need Is Everything", both of which remain a concert staple to this day. The last third of the compilation bring tracks from the IRS albums of the early days, including the classics "Sleep Baby Jane" and "Within Without" from the 1994 album "Eve", which shoulda coulda brought mainstream success (but didn't). This compilation also includes one new song "Last Night on Earth Again", which is nice but not essential (but for the OtR completists, such as me).
In all, this is a very nice overview (but don't call it a "best of") of what Over the Rhine has done for 15+ years. After their contract with Barck Porch ran out, the band decided to go on independently. In December, 2006, they released "Snow Angels", their long-awaited sequel to 1996's "Darkest Night of the Year" Christmas album, bringing all-original Christmas songs, just superb. Later this year, the band is slated to release "A Trumpet's Child", their next studio album. I've been following Over the Rhine since the early days, and they have taken many new turns along the way, but they've never ceased to amaze me. If you are new to OtR, "Discount Fireworks" is a great way to familiarize yourself with the band, and then dig into the individual albums. Highly recommended!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My favorite album ... of all time , August 9, 2007
It's funny how a single album can stick in your mind, influence your life, ride in your memory at work and play. 'Discount Fireworks' is my soul album. It's a compilation of Over the Rhine, and that worked perfectly for me (my first exposure to OTR after one great live concert).
The songs here touch me. They crawl in my mind. They bring religion to a sorry lost soul. (And I am not in the least religious.)
'Last Night on Earth Again' is the opener, a tragically funny prayer, musically gorgeous. Then the sensational 'If Nothing Else,' possibly my favorite track on any album, anywhere.
There are many styles here, country, ballads, rock. The voice of Karin Bergquist is sensational -- ever changing, always perfect. This is intelligent music with a message. 'Give Me Strength' inspires. 'Ohio' is incredibly haunting and beautiful.
This compilation is a great introduction to Over the Rhine, the greatest band you've never heard of. If they come to your town, at some small musical bar, you must get there. Until then, listen to this.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Engaging Introduction to the Incredible Music of Over the Rhine, June 22, 2008
Discount Fireworks is "a collection" (and insistently not a "best of" collection) of music drawn from the first 15 years of Over the Rhine's recording endeavors. Over the Rhine, for the uninitiated, is a husband-and-wife duo (Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist) based near Cincinnati, OH, who, along with supporting musicians, create the type of music you'd wish existed if it didn't. Intelligent, thoughtful, and poetic lyrics combine with excellent musicianship and Bergquist's unbelievable voice (one writer once said, correctly, that her voice was made to draw out vowel sounds longer than, and in ways that, you'd never imagine) to produce heartfelt slices of truly Americana music. You only have to look at the opening lines of "Last Night on Earth Again," the one new song and opening track on Discount Fireworks, to appreciate the absolutely-nailed-it quality of American sensibilities that Detweiler and Bergquist regularly communicate: "Down south where Elvis is king/And Jesus is Lord."
"Last Night on Earth Again" is a humorous country song of two aspiring artists' life on the road. Country is only one of several genres into which Over the Rhine delves and does very well; Detweiler and Bergquist also major in pop, acoustic, and all sorts of unconventional pop/country/acoustic variations, although they have never had a hit single. They even took a bit of a fuller-sound-with-some-electronica detour on their first new studio album with Back Porch Records, Films for Radio (2001), which apparently was their biggest attempt to date at tapping into the mainstream market. This compilation mostly draws from the couple's four Back Porch studio albums, the other three of which are the much-loved Good Dog Bad Dog (originally released independently, 1996; rereleased on Back Porch, 2000), which made the transition to the Back Porch label with two track changes; Ohio (2003), a double album considered by many to be the band's masterpiece; and the intimate Drunkard's Prayer (2005), which essentially chronicles trials and redemption in the couple's marriage. This collection, however, also goes back to the band's beginnings with the IRS label in the early '90s, with one song each from Till We Have Faces (1991) and Patience (1992), and two from Eve (1994).
And on Discount Fireworks, the couple lets its different musical experiments sit uneasily together. The three fuller-sound forays ("If Nothing Else," "Give Me Strength," "The World Can Wait") alternate with country- and acoustic-flavored offerings ("Last Night on Earth Again," "Suitcase," "Latter Days") in the first six tracks of the recording, creating a musical juxtaposition that nevertheless highlights the thematical continuities found throughout Over the Rhine's songs. In tracks 7 through 10, country/pop ("Show Me") and alternative pop ("All I Need Is Everything") alternate with moving meditative pieces "Born" and "Ohio," both of which showcase Bergquist's voice to stunning effect. The last third of the album focuses on the band's more musically generic early-to-mid '90s tunes, with only a live version of "Lookin' Forward" bringing the listener into this decade.
The musical juxtaposition is countered by a worldweariness that provides a common lyrical mood and consistency across most of Over the Rhine's songs. As different (and arguably musically less successful) as the three Films for Radio songs sound from the rest of the tracks on Discount Fireworks, they all express an alienation from the trappings of the world (whether material, spiritual, or interpersonal) common to all of Over the Rhine's releases. Detweiler and Bergquist, in fact, come from a Christian background that is almost always expressed subtly and implicitly rather than directly, and they appear more comfortable with songs of doubt than confident statements of faith (e.g., from "Last Night on Earth Again": "I told Jesus he could have my heart/He said, 'What kinda shape's it in?'"). Except in rare cases, you may never notice their religious allusions, which are set in the broader milieu of Americana. Their very American worldweariness is in the spirit of Flannery O'Connor and other authors whose faith provided a critical but often below-the-surface subtext to their works. The clues we do get of Detweiler's and Bergquist's faith point to a fascinating mix of liberal mainline Protestantism in its progressive political/social leanings, coupled with a sometimes-strong sense of sin that one might find (in differing degrees and shades of theological meaning) in, say, Roman Catholicism or Reformed Protestantism. (This form of Christian faith was not uncommon in the Ohio that I grew up in during the late '70s and early-to-mid '80s -- the same era and state in which both Detweiler and Bergquist were growing up.)
Since Over the Rhine (probably wisely) disavows any sense of this being a definitive collection, it's hard to criticize Discount Fireworks. If there's a major weakness, it's that the album takes a sharp turn after "Ohio" (track 10), owing mostly to the fact that the band's very early IRS material all piles up at the end (possibly partly to emphasize the Back Porch material from the beginning of the album). The very early tracks are quite good, even if they do not match the quality of the more recent material. Still, they are musically different and lyrically somewhat less developed. I would have liked to see the band mix these songs in throughout the album, since musical juxtaposition is the name of the game in the first 10 tracks anyway.
Be that as it may, Discount Fireworks provides a very-good-to-excellent introduction to Over the Rhine. This is a coffee-house band (absolutely incredible live) that you might listen to so that paradoxically you can both forget daily life concerns and think more about deep life issues at the same time. It also is good for listeners (like myself before I bought this album) who may have only one or two Over the Rhine albums and want to hear some of the band's past work. For being just "a collection," it's almost as good as you can get. Four-and-a-half stars.
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