Random Spirit Lover

Sunset Rubdown | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 9, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Jagjaguwar
• ASIN: B000VDDBLQ
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,188 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

While Spencer Krug's unique vocals, imagery, and wibble-wobble song structure remain intact, Random Spirit Lover showcases great growth for both he and his band as musicians. Spencer's voice and unique instrumental choices may scare some away, but with repeat listens, you truly see numerous layers to these new songs. The album begins with the same sound you may have come to expect from Sunset Rubdown on Shut Up I am Dreaming and also from Spencer while performing with Wolf Parade. Songs like "The Mending of the Gown" and "Up on Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days" feature the same frantic, yelping and infectious lyrics that have become Krug trademarks. The album takes a turn at "Winged/Wicked Things" and slowly grows and evolves into a more refined yet experimental version of a band that has obviously started to discover their identity. The latter half of the album, beginning with "The Taming of the Hands that Came Back to Life," all the way till the last second of "Child-Heart Losers," features the band's best music to date and also the signs of a band that have become their own entity, far removed from Wolf Parade or Frog Eyes. --Aaron Swetnam

Product Description

Their third full-length features twelve songs that bleed in and out of each other, mixing portents with theatrics, confusions with conversions. "Beyond writing catchy tunes and packing them with whispers, mallets, harpsichord, and patches of cheapskate drum machines, [Spencer Krug's] an intriguing presence. Instead of bubbling along at one level, he roller coasters and raves, mixing nonsense with sharp observations and sadness with puns" - Pitchfork. "Shut Up I Am Dreaming" on Absolutely Kosher SoundScanned over 15,000 copies and earned Pitchfork's "Best New Music" tag.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The indie-rocker has sung, October 8, 2007

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Random Spirit Lover (Audio CD)

Spencer Krug is insane. In the best possible way of course.

And Sunset Rubdown has expanded their sound in every direction, with the gloriously dense third album "Random Spirit Lover." While their music hasn't changed drastically in sound, it's grown deeper and denser and much, much weirder -- in fact, it may be too dense to hear in one sitting.

It opens with a sprightly tangle of growling squealing guitar, energetic piano, bells and blurry synth. "He was a man of many nations, had a hundred souls and a hundred to go/He was a man of many nations, two hearts, two hands, it's a slippery slope," Krug yowls over the bouncy, cluttered melody. "It was the tender mending of this slender gown/that brought me bending to the ground..."

You might want to just turn it off after that, and take a little while to digest it. Or you can move on to the tremulous, mournfully quirky "Magic vs. Midas," which serves as a little oasis after the craziness of the first song.

But things don't really get any simpler after that -- we have twinkly marches, ominous indie-rock with a chorale, stately crescendos of ringing guitars, rippling dark electronica, and cascading eruptions of crazy harps and keyboard. Occasionally, they mix in a gentle echoing experimental song, a fuzzfolk pop song, or a tinkl little ballad like "Stallion."

You can really tell in "Random Spirit Lover" that Sunset Rubdown is no longer merely a side band for people from Pony Up, Wolf Parade, et cetera. Their music has really blossomed into a dense, intense combination of experimental music (a la Animal Collective) and pop tunes. You can dance to it, but it might make you dizzy.

Each melody is made of a bunch of loosely intertwined instrumentals -- winding riffs that vary from ringing to fuzzy, solid drums and fast-moving piano setting the beat. And the whole thing is wound in a dizzying, colourful blanket of shimmering glockenspiel, harmonica, and swells of windy keyboard.

Krug is responsible for most of the vocals, and it takes a little while to get used to his yowling, dramatic voice. But he sings lyrics of staggering lyrical beauty ("You say it's the hair of ghosts/So I say it's the white hair of Poseidon/Ebbing in the tide in some dead sea"), and more than a little tenderness.

Even more striking, those lyrics are crammed with symbolism and dreamlike imagery -- leopards, virgins, snow and ice, the Shroud of Turin, and lots of diamonds and violins. There are plenty of repeating motifs in these songs, tangling them almost into a theme album.

Your ears may overflow while you're listening to "Random Spirit Lover," but the rich experimental pop and astounding lyrics make a wonderful way to be overwhelmed. Definitely a must-listen.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best records ever made., January 1, 2008

By 

Will (St Lawrence Valley) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Random Spirit Lover (Audio CD)

There's nothing out there similar to this.
That the album has gathered such a mediocre reaction from critics is a testament solely to the hysterically dense and over the top nature of the album.

This will be rediscovered at some point, as Moby Dick was over 50 years after publication, and it will be held as a classic of art.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top 10 album of the decade, February 7, 2009

By 

J. Farhat "Lives at 9:30 Club" (D.C., USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Random Spirit Lover (Audio CD)

This album is amazing. It's weird enough that you don't get turned on to it immediately, but in the same way it can be appreciated endlessly. I thought Shut up I am Dreaming was un-toppable but this album in my opinion goes a little further than that album. Listen to it, again, and again, and again. Lyrics, melodies, everything. This album is in pretty good contention for being one of the top albums of this decade.