A Week With The Skygreen Leopards' "Disciples of California": Day 2
16 December 2006
tell your friends...
Words by Tony Conte//Illustration by Richard Clarke
Yesterday I promised you funny lyrics. Today, I provide them: “Howling for blood, we bathe in the flood of sunlight on the water.”
The worst part is that after my second full listen to the album, I’m kind of scared that something awful will happen to me for laughing about this band. There is nothing especially threatening about the album in a traditional sense, but listen more closely. And do that for 35 minutes. Now rinse and repeat. NO, bathe and repeat. Do whatever you can to clean that dirty feeling off of yourself. It’s like a two-day-old sheen of sweat that’s dried leaving only an invisible layer of your body’s own salt. You can’t see it, but if you bend an elbow you feel it, dry and grating, tight on your skin.
Listen No. 2 proves that an album truly can begin to bloom after a few listens. But don’t think “rose” bloom think “titan arum” bloom. (If you’re wondering, go ahead and Google it.) If the Disciples of California had to be vegetation, it would be the Titan Arum. That’s if it had to be living vegetation. If it had its choice, it’d be dried and dusty tumbleweed. An omen of death and desolation even as the wind carries it with an echo of lyrics about something that sounds as if it should be life affirming…but isn’t.
The album starts off unassuming enough. A few Rawhide-inspired slow-burners that could be lazy background music for a barbecue on the hottest day of summer. However, the sun does set on this album, and the twilight will unsettle you. Let me warn you, by track No. 11, you may be afraid to listen to this record in the dark. It’s not Michael Jackson “Thriller” scary, but rather DJ Shadow “Endtroducing” haunting.
This was most certainly planned. And that’s genius. The religious allusions don’t start creeping into the lyrics until around track No. 8 and by the final track, No. 11, you’re steeped in it.
By then I’m confused as all get out, and unsatisfied to say the least, but curious.
The slow, arpeggiated whine of too-much-treble guitars overtakes me early on. The slow-trot rhythms attempt to lasso all the songs together, while the subtly anarchic guitars threaten to unravel the already limping momentum like old yarn coming loose from an afghan.
“Marching Band” is an early fave for me. It proves that the Leopards are at their best when they outpace the tired gait of their drummer and lose him entirely. Stripped down to just voices and a weak chord or two, the Brothers’ Leopard wheeze: “I want to join a marching band.” And you believe them. Then you listen for drums…there are none. Then you feel like a fool and begin to doubt the sincerity of the entire album. These guys want to drive you crazy.
Just wait til they start singing about Jesus and the crucifixion in those emphysema voices of theirs. Grab your bible and start praying, hon, because these songs are from either the satanic hymnal or the post-millenium choir. Either way, I’ll be in church this Sunday, you can count on it.
Tomorrow: Why god gave us asthma medication.
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