Standards
Into It. Over It. / Standards / 2016 / LP 03189-1
Standards - a brilliant, coming-of-30’s album from the genuine mind of Evan Weiss with tremendous help from drummer Josh Sparks. Released in March of 2016, this record pulled me through my final semester of college with it’s countless spins in my apartment bedroom. Weiss and Sparks set out to a lonely cabin in Vermont for a month to write the record before heading to California to record it all with John Vanderslice directly to tape. Weiss’s original concept when beginning the writing process of the album was to confine himself to only using standard guitar tuning (EADGBE). After realizing just how creatively limiting that is, it was quickly ditched for his plethora of odd wind ups. Following Weiss’s trend of one word album titles that carry a lot of hidden heft, Standards is about embracing the future while longing for the past.
Highlighting some favorites, No EQ has Weiss recollecting on a recently played reunion show with his former band, The Progress. It’s full of imagery as he ponders the “what if we were still a band?” while also realizing that while he may not have changed, his ex-bandmates have as he yearns for the old times. With me approaching 30 this summer, the bridge really hits - "My aching brain doesn’t process things the same. At 30, muscles fade, but in 20 years I’ve barely changed”. The track is arrayed with looping harmonics and synth-textures in the background as Josh does his thing on the kit before detonating with Evan’s huge chords in the chorus. Mid-record track Your Lasting Image is my favorite on the LP and is the reason I’m writing this Record Review now in the first place. Two weeks ago we headed up to Grand Canyon National Park to celebrate my wife’s 30th birthday and this song instantly populated my head as we peered over the south rim. It’s an immaculate track that embodies an ethereal, night sky satellite droning in the background as a simple guitar riff unfolds with Evan’s lines - “Abandoned nerves for the night and threw my fears over the summits peak. I dug my nails in the sand and begged the canyon to begin to speak”. It captures sitting and watching the sunset at one of the most beautiful places on Earth precisely. As the droning fades out, Old Lace & Ivory segues in as a homage to Evan’s grandfather who fought in WWII. Evan doesn’t miss with the imaginative lyricism and rhyming here - “Despite a tendency for standards, I’m a second guess. I’ve trained my vision to retire if the world’s a mess. So when the wreckage pulls me under I’ll slow my breathing to the tide beneath the covers”. Anesthetic takes you on a trip - literally. In an interview with AV Club Evan states “I felt, lyrical content aside, I wanted to capture sonically what it would feel like to be under local anesthetic, and what does your brain think of, or see, when you’re technically dead. What would those sounds be? What would the tones be?” It’s fuzzy, sluggish, and dreamy all at once so I think they hit it on the head.
Standards was produced and mixed by John Vanderslice and Evan Weiss. The die-cut gatefold jacket has 12 insets (one for each song) with select needlepoint art on the front and the lyrics on the reverse side. All needlepoint was stitched by hand by Brittany Hutchinson (tinycupneedleworks). The full AV Club interview with Evan Weiss can be read here.
*Use headphones
**A man is returning from Switzerland by train. If he had been in non-smoking car he would have died.
