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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Rasputina's best album after Thanks for the Ether, April 16, 2006
How We Quit the Forest, Rasputina's second full-length album, doesn't have so much the melancholy quality that Thanks for the Ether does. Several of the songs are also more mellow than those on Thanks for the Ether, but How We Quit the Forest sounds much more like rock overall, although it is still of its own original genre and certainly cannot be called rock. Those who classify How We Quit the Forest as rock and Thanks for the Ether as "goth" are simply lazy and eager for easy labels. How We Quit the Forest uses much distortion, giving it a more grating, electronic, rock-like sound, and odd sound effects (such as the duck call on "LeechWife"). While several of the songs on Thanks for the Ether are based tightly on historical events, the stories in How We Quit the Forest tend to be more fictional or spoofy. The lyrics are also less enigmatic, cleverly ironic, and insightful; Melora seems to have taken an overall simpler, goofier direction with them. Even the "joke songs" are sillier and less interesting. Since I love the melancholy, ethereal, "organic" sound of Thanks for the Ether and the wonderful stories behind it, I can't say that this album or, in fact, any of Rasputina's other albums, is better than their first, but How We Quit the Forest is my second in preference, and as a work of art it's still pretty interesting, creative, and sometimes emotive. Many people like it better than Thanks for the Ether; many probably don't. I suppose you'd just have to find out for yourself. Here's my impression of the songs:
The Olde HeadBoard - One of the more rock-ish songs. Nearly impossible to make sense of the relation of the "old headboard" to the narrator and the situation she describes. Melora explains, on the concept of the song: "I think something a lot of people do that I do, and have done, is that you're with somebody new and you just make up who they are. All these wonderful things that might not have any bearing on reality. It's kind of like building a person." The notes for the music video also mention that "Fantasy people are much harder to get over. Especially when you have a big imagination." They made a lovely, colorful music video for this song (the only one they ever made, I believe), which you can find at www.waterstained.com. Not my favorite song on the album, I'd say, but a sort of nice one to open with, and I guess it's one of the "catchier" songs that are always strategically placed towards the beginning of albums.
LeechWife - Again, rock-like. Quirky sound effects and fake cheering in the background. This song is about a little girl deciding to become a "leechwife," and features the kind of anachronistic combining of antique subjects with modern language (for example, phrases such as "You don't need no New Age crap") that is associated with Rasputina.
You Don't Own Me - A slowed-down cover. About a young woman who enjoys her freedom telling her boyfriend or the men she dates in general not to tell her what to do or say or put her on display.
The New Zero - My favorite song on the album. It is sweet and sad and tells an engaging story. Her voice is small and mellow on this one and not as shrill as it almost annoyingly is on some of the other songs. About an Abominable Snowman-esque creature whom I tend to think of as a cyborg-wolf-seal-made-of-many-incongruous-parts-type thing and his escaping from the harsh ostracism of society to an ice hotel with a girl (either friend or lover, but I initially thought of her as a little misfit girl and that he might even be her imaginary friend). You get the feeling towards the end that they let themselves drift away, possibly into death. It's not exactly that they let themselves go; it's just that they didn't really care enough to forcibly stay ("I really don't care, and neither does he/If this hotel melts into the sea/Polished and so rare, this way that we see/The coldness helps, it's our favorite remedy").
Rose K. - This is a moving song about the pain of old age and its accompanying physical and mental deterioration (not even being able to remember the life you used to have, etc.), and not so much about Rose Kennedy herself as anyone going through that. It's soft and vaguely wistful, and not mocking at all.
DwarfStar - One of the joke songs that aren't semi-serious (like the ones on Thanks for the Ether, such as "The Donner Party") but aren't funny, either. I usually skip this one.
Signs of the Zodiac - A very sad and touching song, even with its rather impersonal tone. Melora has a way of just telling a story and being somewhat removed from it yet conveying its sadness and making you feel the sympathy that should accompany it. It's about a man who's just had a heart attack and is in the hospital, surrounded by his family and friends, and our inability to predict or prevent these events, no matter how neat or orderly we might try to make our lives ("Do you believe in the signs of the zodiac?/Haven't you found that the systems for planning always fail?/Can you avoid what gave Daddy his heart attack?/Have you tried everything, anything, all to no avail?").
TrenchMouth - A catchy, mocking song about a white-trash, Dixie flag-waving, no-good brother who has abandoned his little sister, the narrator. Probably the most rock-ish song on the album.
Herb Girls of Birkenau - One of the serious, sincere songs. About victims of Josef Mengele (the Nazi physician who performed cruel and unusual experiments on Jews) in the concentration camp of Birkenau, and is based on a Holocaust survivor's account. Melora says about her inspiration for the song: "[The author] was working in the field or something and saw, rising over the hill, a perfect line of perfectly clean, shaven-headed women with aprons, picking herbs, with the most lifeless, soulless, zombielike eyes. [You have] the contrast of perfectly pressed aprons, picking herbs on a beautiful day... It was a chance for me to write a song dealing with that without making fun of it. In fact, I tried to make it a heartfelt, serious song, without being goofy at all. I'm interested in extremes of mind and how people respond when they suffer like that."
MayFly - To be honest, this was one of the songs I usually skipped. Musically, it is not very interesting or noticeabe, but conceptually, it is. Melora says: "Yeah, that is heartfelt--and it's kind of existential and serious with very light, almost dated dance music as the [setting]. When I was in high school, I heard, 'Oh, the mayfly, it lives only one day; there's no purpose to its life.' And that was the first time I ever thought, 'What is the purpose to our life?' [laughs] Do we have one? And I think [our life] is the same thing; it's just longer and it probably feels the same to the mayfly as to us, and...that's okay with me!'" So take a closer look at this song. I really like the idea behind it and its approach to the life of the mayfly.
Christian Soldiers - One of the joke songs that must be skipped. I can hardly tolerate this one.
Things I'm Gonna Do - I like the lyrics and her vocals on this song. It's about someone who yearns to "spit in the face of a tried and true one." "My cave is lit with tiny lights/I climb the stairs and catch the sight/Of other people far below/I've heard of them, they think they know/I make no friends, I've got no spark/In my defense, I take apart/What's put together easily/This is all true, I'll make it be"
Diamond Mind - A funny parody of diamond jewelry commercials. It is basically spoken from the perspective of a greedy woman who is pressuring her fiance/husband to get her a diamond with classical cello skillfully weaving in the background. Clever how the music matches the tone of the woman (when she starts talking louder and faster, the playing becomes more furious, etc.).
How We Quit the Forest - A more "organic" song telling the story of an ostrich, an egret, and a peacock living in the same hut in the forest. The "forest" is a metaphor for society, the animals that inhabit it are the various members of society, and "quitting the forest" suggests mentally quitting the social rules, customs, and norms that normally dictate us when we allow them to, and coming more fully into one's individuality. The ostrich and the egret rent their flat to another bird, the peacock, considering that although "his belongings were meager...he was pretty, would bring good luck." Initially they have all these ideas about getting along fabulously with the peacock ("they would sing songs all around the piano and do the cakewalk"), but soon they find out that he's different from them, though not necessarily in a good way, because all three are quite petty and small-minded. Having to deal with economic pressures, they let him stay because he's worth the money, but "so still they sat by the fireplace, silent/A chill ran through them." Most of the song is just about the three birds, but there is an outside narrator observing them all in their foolishness and plight and I believe that the ending lines ("The scene wasn't what it used to be/The scene is never what it used to/So that's how we quit the forest") are referring to Rasputina themselves and their individuality. It's as though they are recalling having observed the members of society like the ostrich, the egret, and the peacock and decided that this was all silly and that they wanted to do something different. A little gem of an allegory here. Worthy of giving the album its title.
Watch T.V. - This is about someone who's lost a brother (I don't think in the sense that he died) and is sort of in denial or delusion. She just sits and watches TV all day, and is waiting for him to come back to her. He was the golden child, the "star" of the family as well as on TV, "the one who always smiled and talked for half an hour/Always new." Reminds me a little of "TrenchMouth" just because it's about a brother who deserted her and disappointed her in some way. A soft, gentle song concluding the album.
My favorite songs on this album would be "The New Zero," "Rose K.," "Signs of the Zodiac," "Herb Girls of Birkenau," "Things I'm Gonna Do," "How We Quit the Forest," and maybe "TrenchMouth." I do think that the softer, mellower songs are more the keepers. If you like Rasputina, you'll like this album. However, I think of Thanks for the Ether as the more adventuruous and complex album, with better lyrics and (or possibly just more noticeable) cello playing. It was just cellos and drums then, but now the band has taken a different direction that never really returns to the melancholy, completely instrumental sound it had on Thanks for the Ether.
This review better have been helpful; I spent ages writing it!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic album one of the very best i've ever heard., December 19, 2001
Rasputina are brilliant. The music is incredible, and the lyrics are delightfully quirky. Every song is excellent and the narrations Dwarf Star, and Christian Soldiers are quite humourous. For the most part each song is upbeat but after awhile you realize that there is something sinister buried with in them. The lyrics are often satyrical but in a dark way, and The Herb Girls of Birkenau is haunting and unspeakably brutal. The music on this album is predominantly cello and drum but the cellos come off sounding like bass guitar. When all blended together you sense the beautiful melody but feel the crushing power. It is like a fusion of classical and industrial. Much better than Thanks for the Ether (which is still quite good). This album holds its own against most of the things i listen too (Manson, Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir)and is far and away better than damn near all of the crap marketed today.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You must listen to this, September 16, 2000
I have owned this album since it first came out and yet two years later I still play it constantly. A lot of people like their first album better, but I think this is more creative and unique. Melora's voice is beautiful and the cello arrangements are awesome. There's songs where the celloes sound like guitars! It also has great drum programming by ex-NIN member Chris Vrenna. I think my favorite song is "Watch TV" though I can safely say that this is one of those rare CDs where every song is awesome. Out of the hundreds of discs I own, this is one of my ten favorites. Absolutely beautiful.
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by Rasputina 
