Hey folks!

Today’s Best Album of 2001 match is:

#29 Built to Spill, ANCIENT MELODIES OF THE FUTURE

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vs.

#100 Mercury Rev, ALL IS DREAM

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To vote, follow this link to the Google Form. You will need a Google login to vote. If you can’t or won’t have one, let me know ASAP (either through this newsletter, my email [kentmbeeson@hey.com] or on the Best Album Brackets Bluesky account) and I’ll see what I can do.

We have dueling Designated Cheerleaders today! First, for ANCIENT MELODIES OF THE FUTURE, it’s @mrfasthorse.bsky.social. Take it away, Mr. Fast Horse!

This is the fifth studio album from this indie alt rock mainstay, living in the afterglow of seminal studio albums Perfect from Now On and Keep It Like a Secret. This album is a step back to the looser feel of BTS’s earlier work, but a step toward the keyboards and synths that makes AMOTF unique in the BTS catalogue. It’s a maturing sound, a recurring motif of many bands in this bracket that were trying to find a way to survive in transition from the grunge & alt-rock explosion of the 90’s into a sound befitting musicians approaching their (gulp) thirties.

BTS has long been an indie band shibboleth, name-checked by bands like Modest Mouse, and even by the likes of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, and covered once by Ben Folds Five (Twin Falls, a beautifully melancholy song in both original form and in the cover). Trimmed and Burning on AMOTF is more reminiscent of the band’s earlier indie sound - think a little more Steve Albini than Butch Vig. Now, in their old age, there’s a touch of country creeping into the song arrangements. On AMOTF, Happiness is a sloppy cowboy campfire romp, and Fly around My Pretty Little Miss is a fun poppy continuation of this country flavor. There’s long been a country twang buried in BTS, and frontman Doug Martsch toured solo with Modest Mouse just last year, as a country act playing slide guitar.

The synth on this record was a new divisive element for BTS, providing a sonic backdrop that would be difficult to achieve with guitars & pedals alone. The sad sagging synth in the verses of Alarmed are challenging at first, but they give way to a marching triumphal chorus and a cyclic guitar-fuzz bridge. To me the synths don’t feel out of place. It’s a piece of their evolving sound, an experiment reaching its peak here before scaling back in subsequent releases (I hesitate to compare the novelty to that blasted tremolo on REMs Monster, but alas).

Right as I started grad school, I made new friends that were really into Built to Spill, who handed me a copy of Perfect from Now On. I’ll confess it didn’t impress me at first, but I went along with them to a local BTS show anyway, trying to nurture these new friendships in an unfamiliar town. I remember it was on a brief tour of small venues leading up to the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, where BTS were tuning up for a show where they were to play Perfect from start to finish. Reader, the way that this band clicked for me in the very first song that night (Randy Described Eternity) is something I wish everyone could experience, and years later I still can’t quite put my finger on exactly why it hit so hard. Martsch’s shy minimalist banter combined with his Muppet-like singing mannerisms and melodic extended solos were somehow the Rosetta Stone I needed to go back through their entire discography and really get it. Listening to AMOTF straight through for the first time in a while, I was surprised how many songs felt timeless and inevitable, like if Martsch didn’t write them someone else would.

As a perpetually touring indie act, I’ve seen BTS live maybe a dozen times now, with three different configurations backing Martsch, the only constant in the group. With his signature dirty pants and touring backpack carried right on stage, he’s now an ascetic monk worshiping small venues. I have tickets for another show this fall. I hope they play Strange.

Thank you, @mrfasthorse.bsky.social!

Next, for ALL IS DREAM, we have, fresh off his DC for Les Savy Fav’s GO FORTH, @robbiebuffalo.bsky.social! Take it away, Robbie!

Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. I would guess that even if you’d never heard Mercury Rev before you’d have a pretty good sense of what you’re getting from ALL IS DREAM based on the album art and title. This is big, gauzy, impressionistic, and yes dreamy psychedelic rock. It is not subtle. That’s not what Mercury Rev does (it is produced by Dave Fridman after all). But if you’re on this kind of wavelength, ALL IS DREAM has a lot to offer.

I also give Mercury Rev credit for not making DESERTER’S SONGS, Part 2. Their previous album was their big breakthrough, leaving behind their more abrasive and experimental elements, and adding Americana (it even featured Levon Helm and Garth Hudson). Towards the back of that album there were a handful of tracks ("Funny Bird", Goddess on a Hiway") that followed a more straightforward psych-rock template. This is the mode that ALL IS DREAM primarily operates in.

Jonathan Donahue's high-pitched vocals are likely not for everyone, but they support the almost child-like, magical quality of the music. Album opener "The Dark Is Rising" features big string arrangements, loud organs, and crashing guitars, before going back into quieter verses. The album vacillates between mid-tempo rockers like "Chains" and "Little Rhymes" and quieter ballads like "A Drop In Time" and "Spiders and Flies".

Hopefully, you've made it to album-closer "Hercules", because not only is it the highlight of ALL IS DREAM, but it's my favorite song Mercury Rev ever made. It begins with quiet acoustic guitars and organs. Each verse builds momentum, adding in electric guitars and increased tempos as the lyrics take you further into the journey. Finally at the 5-minute mark a crescendo of squalling guitars build to an epic conclusion. This is what Mercury Rev does best and for me is utterly transporting. I've listened to this song in bed with eyes closed drifting off to sleep many times over the last 25 years and it never fails to move me. It's why I still find myself coming back to this album.

Thank you again, Robbie!

Click here to see the current results for the entire tournament, and click here to see the current results for the prediction bracket contest.

Yesterday, #61 Pulp, WE LOVE LIFE defeated #68 Les Savy Fav, GO FORTH, 111-105. This total includes one vote by email, due to internet weirdness afflicting both Bluesky and Google Forms at the time.

Thanks,

Kent