Coal Beautiere - Fight Your Broken Heart and Fly - mp3 review
I, my friends, back in the mid to late 90’s was all things chick rock. Perhaps it was their sultry style, maybe their alluring voice, or it could have been, just maybe…that fact that I couldn’t get a chick to talk to me to save my life. So at least they could sing to me. There was Tori Amos (But then quickly realizing I didnt believe in Fairies.) Bjork (Soon after, realizing I forgot to wear my swan suit), Fionna Apple (I eat, therefore we would never get along.), and Ani Difranco (anyone woman who births albums faster than she can birth babies is over compensating for something.) There were others too, god so many others. The Mummers, Syble Vein, Throwing Muses, Belly, etc. etc.. And I listened to them all. Somehow between then and now the magic is gone. I just dont have the connection I once did with the female singer. Thats not to say that they aren’t still good for the most part, or that there arent other new talents out there that are even better. But I guess I just don’t care for it anymore. Although from time to time I run across a female that brings me back to those days of old.
Coal Beautiere, is not that band.
Personal opinions aside, they really should be said band. Droning piano lines, ghostly vocals, ambient noise. Whats not to like? If this was 1994 I’d have seen them ten times already. but its not. If Alice in Wonderland was performed in play form in my high school gym by girls with too many cats and boys who love dragons, this would be the soundtrack.
Wow I’m not good and keeping my opinion to myself on this one, sorry about that. Try it out for yourself. Maybe you’ll dig it.
This is from the release Fight Your Broken Heart and Fly.
I’d put their little diatribe from their page on here to give you a “what they’re about” but what they’re about sounds like a whole bunch of poppycock to me. You can find it here
Oh and here’s some songs…
-Dave
January 31st, 2008 at 8:37 pm
i’m still recovering from Vampire Weekend.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:14 pm
hey, thanks! I actually don’t mind that you don’t like the album. It’s the “poppycock” comment that hurts my damn feelings. But then again, I’d probably NEVER go to a vampire weekend, anymore, that is.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:18 pm
oh shite. didn’t see that Vampire Weekend was or is a musical band or something. Well, that’s how good I am at dissing…..I just figured it was a bunch of cool kids wearing vampire gear, and since I don’t know where the hell I am on this here blog, I made and ass out of u and me.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:39 pm
i like them. especially live. it takes a pretty fly lady to sing, play keyboard, and tap dance to the beat all at the same time.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:43 pm
I agree. they are great, blood and gold is easily one of my favorite tracks so far this year. dave’s just jealous.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:08 pm
its a bad review…posting on myspace to get your friends to leave nasty comments about the reviewer is just low.
Are you that worried?
January 31st, 2008 at 11:10 pm
hmm, i quite like this band. Aside, from all the mumble about your past which no one really cares to hear … it would be nice to read a real band review. I respect that it is indeed not everyones cup of tea but i must say that saying that someones art is “poppycock” well, thats just mean.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:24 pm
personally, i love coal beautiere. maybe some people would prefer to save their tunes for a rainy day. but when that day comes their cd is the perfect accompaniment.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:50 pm
I, my friends, used to read lots of music critics: Lester Bangs, Otis Ferguson, and others who knew how to turn a good phrase and give entertaining insight into the nature and experience of music. Then I began to feel that a lot music critics are just people who love but can’t make very good music. There seemed to be less and less insight and magic to musical criticism and more and more cynicism and attempts at wit that repeatedly fell painfully short, attempts such as, “If Alice in Wonderland was performed in play form in my high school gym by girls with too many cats and boys who love dragons, this would be the soundtrack.” Irony and sarcasm, it suddenly seemed to me, had suddenly taken over what seemed, at one time, such a promising field of study and observation. I want a music critic to come along and help me believe that good music criticism is still alive and thriving, gathering its strength to encourage and illuminate the hows and whys of music in this important era.
Dave is not that critic.
Coal Beautiere’s music seems to come from a genuine place of wanting to bring some magic and beauty to this wayward world of ours, an admirable wanting, and possessed of an admirable execution. There is sincerity in this music that is lacking in much of the music celebrated today.
Please put on your insight hat, Dave. Irony, indeed, is not dead. In fact it’s killing everything good. Please drop from the ranks of irony’s minions.
February 1st, 2008 at 12:55 am
This is one of my favorite albums made last year… I share it with everyone! Although it has a somewhat “retro” sensibility, I wouldn’t call it a throw-back; I hear echoes of modern artists like Joanna Newsome and Lisa Germano in her vocals and melodies. But I didn’t stop listening to all music by women after 1997, so what do I know!
February 1st, 2008 at 4:07 am
What the hell are you talking about?! That wasn’t even a review. You’re rambling is completely irrelative. You made comparisons to bands that are completely off the subject. The question is: Is Coal Beautiere great? The answer is : Yes. Keep the Tori Amos and Björk comments to Tori Amos and Björk. It sounds like you’re just frustrated because you couldn’t get laid in high school. I couldn’t either, but that’s not Coal Beautiere’s fault.
February 1st, 2008 at 4:21 am
so yeah, wow. i was pretty offended by every description of the “90’s chick” you mentioned, the obnoxiously apologetic way you explained your past tastes while you currently dissing the album you vaguely even reviewed, and i don’t see the link between CB and anything else you mentioned aside from the word “female”.
maybe you need to work on communicating your opinions better in the future instead of making yourself sound like an ignorant dick.
and i love their album.
February 1st, 2008 at 6:16 am
With so much complication, chaos, and corruption in the world today, I am happy to say that bands like CB exist. They make my soul smile, and for that I am extremely grateful, because so few things today have the ability to do so.
February 1st, 2008 at 6:28 am
I love CB, they make me happy. It’s nice to have such a positive voice out there amid the whiners and egotistical perma-cynics; that’s not “poppycock,” that’s inspiration.
February 1st, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I like them. There’s a famous performance by Bjork at a church in NYC. While she sang, someone shuffled cards near a mic, and someone played a huge harp. It added a special touch of percussion and sounded refreshing. Check it out: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv6rzhZ83rk
Three cheers for Lo-Fi! I think it’s charming. When Coal Beautiere performs, it reminds me of that Bjork show. It’s the same brand of creativity. Listen to “Slow Death” — you’ll hear the perfect tap dancing she does *while* she plays piano. Check it out: www.vimeo.com/476772/
They have a talent for making something subtle and soft have a powerful effect. And, unlike Bjork, Adrienne Spring Beatty does three things at once! I honestly think Bjork would be impressed. Dave, you’re of course entitled to your opinion. But give them another shot, outdoors, on a starry night. You might get lucky. I mean it!
February 1st, 2008 at 11:47 pm
the funny thing is: both sides here contain a lot of the same argument.
so many comments here take Dave to task for not sticking to “music criticism” in his review. an excellent point. however, what Dave was alluding to as “poppycock” (which, granted, is completely insulting and, well, not too clever, either) was the lack of “music” INFO on CBs “what they’re about” section of their myspace page, not their music per se. (or, at least that’s what i inferred from the sentence, since the word was used in reference to not quoting from their myspace bio.)
personally, i don’t agree with him — if Adrienne and Arthur want to put forth their bio more in terms of poetry and philosophy than in terms of tempos and timbres, that’s their call. but by the same token, we can’t rail against Dave for including more imagery than what’s on the CD. it’s fair game.
all that said — CB is quite lovely, really. i had the pleasure to share a bill with them early last year, and i thought they had a really strong presence. and, for what it’s worth, a review like this one just makes me want to go out and buy and hear the record that much more. (although i also agree with one of the previous commenters — Adrienne, don’t worry so much. you’re a talented performer, you don’t need to recruit your friends to comment. although i am doing just that, so i guess my own comments are sort of automatically invalidated.)
and one more thing — even though i know what Dave was feebly referring to by lumping Tori Amos, Bjork and Belly together into some sort of “genre” (because yes, there WAS a surge of female music in the 90s), he seems to have some serious misogyny issues… i mean, to just accept or dismiss artists based on gender is a pretty bizarre concept. you might as well review Leonard Cohen and David Lee Roth in one breath because they both have testicles. (well, i hear Diamond Dave doesn’t, but that’s off the record.) strange.
February 2nd, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Thanks people, and Dave. Everyone is entitled to their own everything, ideas, opinions, advice, what have you. And I am entitled to rally up those who know my reasons and flight in music, and to get them to bring up a defense. If anything, it has resolved an ambivalence about music that came into me, unwelcomed, when I read this review. And to those who tell me not to worry, well, getting on stage and performing -as well as engineering and recording my own album- has been the SCARIEST and most work I have ever done. Especially the getting on stage. Music, for me (not Arthur), has only happened through inexplicable, nonexistent, miracle-courage that has almost slipped through my own cracks over and over again. By the skin of my teeth can I bear to call myself a “musician”. And I don’t care that this is not professional, because by NO MEANS am I a pro. So I do worry. And that’s just who I am. I didn’t set out to get some wonderful feeling of being on stage when I started writing songs. I have only been TERRIFIED of it. And yet I had a message to sing and a fear to rid myself of, and there was no going backwards. Only in the past few months am I gaining a grip on this unease.
So, no matter how easily and rest-assuredly you can give the advice of “don’t worry”- it is not in my soul to take things so lightly. I have never been just chill, thinking that everyone loves what I am saying or singing. It has been the pure opposite.
Hence, perhaps, Daniel Johnston being my favorite musician ever. I relate to him in TOO many ways.
On, another note, however, I really haven’t worried about this review much.