Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires
Dereconstructed
Reviewed by: Lara Supan
My brain says no, but my heart says yes.
Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires have quite a complexing album on their hands. Without being able to put a finger on it, there’s a familiar sound to each of these songs that will make you keep listening even if you can point out ten different things wrong with the track. Distortion rules the land in these songs, which ends up hurting your ear-drum if you’ve got it up too loud and makes the words unintelligible if you’ve got it down lower. There’s nothing immediately stand out about the band’s orchestration or song layout, but Lee Bain III’s vocals, when you can make them out, are agreeable to say the least. They seem to be having fun and the energy in each track is infectious, which makes me wish I could actually understand what he is talking about.
Because of the overarching ear-bleeding distortion and lack of intelligible lyrics, most of these songs sound the same. To pick one to deconstruct at random, let’s dive into track eight, “Flags!”, as an example. The lyrics sound like they are rhythmically complex based on the placement of consonants, but no words can really be made out. The song slowly disintegrates into pure noise, the good kind, as the energy of the piece slowly takes over any stability the song started with. There is even some scream/singing at the end, but Bains handles it in a way that doesn’t make you worry for his voice. Besides this, there’s not much to say about it. But for some reason, I’d probably listen to it again.
Sorry folks, I don’t think I’ve ever been so torn trying to decide where I stand on a piece of music. I could nitpick the heck out of the album with ways I think it could have been constructed better, but maybe that’s why it’s called Dereconstructed. Well played Glory Fires, well played.
Rating: Listenable
