American Analog Set - 'Promise of Love' (Tiger Style)

Source: Paul's, bought new when it came out.

After The Golden Band, the American Analog Set changed labels and direction a bit with 2001's Know By Heart. That's a more sing-song approach, with Andrew Kenny emerging as a frontman (whereas one would have to be a true nerd to pick him out from their previous records). Promise of Love maybe turns and looks backward a bit, as there's some long, drawn-out jamming at the ends of songs like 'Come Home Baby Julie, Come Home' (which is just totally fucking ace, by the way), and the thick organ swells that hearken back to The Fun of Watching Fireworks. Though 'Fool Around' has just the slightest rockstar attitude in Kenny's singing; close your eyes and imagine it's Huey Lewis. The title track is as close as AmAnSet ever get to writing a punk rock stomper, though it's still gentle (but not fey); hey guys, maybe listen to '12XU' a few times before trying this again? The last song, 'Modern Drumming' ends with a 'Health and Efficiency'-style demo tape of the opening track. Maybe one of the reasons I love this band is that they play their instruments like robots but they're still full of feeling. The cover cops out on the LP format by concentrating the nice two-layer print-job in the center at the same size it is on the CD, with craploads of "padding" (as it's called in CSS) - the photo on this post is the CD version but it's close enough that I'm not gonna bother scanning. I never bought their last album but I've been digging Kenny's stripped-down, all-songs-sound-the-same Wooden Birds album.

American Analog Set - 'The Golden Band' (Emperor Jones)

Source: Bought at Paul's, new, when it came out.

You'll find lots of love for the American Analog Set at Dislocated Underbite Spinal Alphabetised Encourager Templates - without apology, without shame, these are records we keep going back to: pop music of the highest class. And this may be their finest statement, a midpoint of their career, shifting from shut-in navel-pickers to the more lyric-oriented later records. Lyrically we're dealing with cities, cultures, and a context long-gone from my life but I still connect with the moody buzzing keyboards and basslines of the 'New Drifters' suite or the subtle but essential handclaps in 'The Wait'. After a million listens these songs still sound like the familiar new. 'The Golden Band' is heavy breathing and household appliances; 'A Good Friend is Always Around' equals fallen leaves crunching underfoot. It ends with 'Will the Real Danny Radnor Please Stand?', which steps along with a maudlin elegance, perhaps the eulogy for my own adolescence. A treasure.