The Pelican’s Perch

SSLYBY are some of the nicest, down to Earth guys you’ll ever meet. You think I’m nice and happy all the time, well, hang out with the guys from Boris Yeltsin and you’ll soon learn it’s possible to have even happier, nicer people than me. Now that I think about it, maybe it’s just the town we live in, because the kids around here are pretty dang nice for the most part. Both the Boris Yeltsin guys and myself reside here in our little college town of Springfield, MO. I guess it’s not that small, but it’s a college town none-the-less. This results in most the local bands, the decent ones at least, developing decent fanbases in town in an unusually short amount of time. Everyone here either plays music or makes art. It’s a strange thing, but it makes being a musician that much better.

Rest of the early listen review after the jump!

I didn’t hang out with Phil or John or any of the other guys in the band until later in my college days, and when I was in Seattle doing the Sub Pop internship, I hung out with them all night after they opened for Sound Team at the Croc down the street. It was a great time and even though I’d seen them countless times and there weren’t any longtime fans at the show to sing the “Whoaaa!” background vocal parts, it was still a great show.

Fast forward a year and a half and we find them finally releasing their long awaited follow-up on their new label Polyvinyl. Most the songs they played for that Seattle show were from this new album. And that was back in Summer of 2006, so while most people reading blogs will only just now hear about them as they’re blowing up, it’s kind of nice knowing I’ve been there for at least three years of their musical journey long before they were ever blog darlings.

Broom, their debut, was a good album, but the fact they recorded it in their attic coupled with the fact I’d seen them more times than I could count led to me barely ever listening to it and skipping over it to listen to something else. “House Fire” I came back to time and time again, but not the album. All that time I hoped and prayed they would get a more polished sound now that they were on a label, and while I was sorely disappointed by Polyvinyl not re-recording Broom and just re-releasing it, with Pershing, their new album, I can finally sleep peacefully. The album, to say it plainly, is absolutely fantastic. Both in production value and songwriting.

I’ve never been more proud of a band in my life, and after at least 20 listens through, I can safely say this will undoubtedly end up in my top five albums of the year. It’s that good. And that’s strange to me putting my friends’ band’s album that high on a year end list.

I could talk about each song in depth, as there’s barely anything here to skip. “Glue Girls” is their first single and features an intertwining guitar bridge/break down that’s well known here in town, as they’ve played it forever. “Modern Mystery” finds the Whoaaa!’s we’d all yelled along with finally making it to the studio. “Some Constellation” is one of the softer songs, but very well could be the best song on the album with it’s great harmonies and subtle build up. “Think I Wanna Die” is, dare I say it, right up there with anything the Shins have written and I stand behind that 100%.

“You Could Write a Book” sounds almost like a Boris Yeltsin/Spoon collab, with distant, echoed lead vocals. Finally, there’s “Heers”. The Heers Tower here in town has been abandoned for quite some time, and lyrics talking about growing older and missing someone from the old days could be about times as a kid sneaking into Heers tower with your big dreams and girl next to you. Of course, that’s a ridiculous assumption, so don’t quote me on that at all. But I’ve put that song on repeat for 30 straight minutes while working on our contracts for LemonDrop and never once did I think, yeah, maybe it’s time to change songs.

If it weren’t for tomorrow’s album, I would say that I’d be surprised if any album could top Pershing. It’s that good and that easy to listen to all the way through that, even after over two weeks having it, I still find myself wanting to listen to it the minute I get home to my computer. I’ll keep tomorrow’s album a secret, since I’m simply blown away by it, but listen now. You heard it on the Perch first. Come April 8th when Pershing is released, SSLYBY will take the indie music world by storm. Pitchfork will love it, the bloggers will go nuts for it, and they’ll end up in SPIN yet again. I can’t wait for the world to hear it and if they somehow stumble upon my little blog today, well, congrats guys. The new album is amazing. I couldn’t be happier with how it ended up.

Glue Girls

Think I Wanna Die

More mp3’s at the Hype Machine (I’d recommend Some Constellation, Modern Mystery, and Heers if you can find it. The first two I know are on there)

Short making of… video

Official Site / Myspace / Pre-order Pershing / Polyvinyl
Daytrotter Live Set (featuring an early version of Modern Mystery)