If I handed out such things, I have to say that The Appleseed Cast win my award for "most improved band." When they started off, they came across as a pretty typical Emo band. When I saw them live--which is during the time period these songs were initially written--they really just did nothing for me, coming across as a been-there done-that emo band, and I wrote them off. I wasn't the only one, either; for the most part, the kids at the show seemed bored--terribly, terribly bored.
When they released their epic Low Level Owl, I have to admit that I didn't think anything about it. I just didn't think that it would be any good. Having no expectations about what they had done was probably the best thing for me, because I was really, truly shocked by what I heard: grand, epic songs, electronic clatter, and a band who had suddenly shifted gears, leaving their past behind, and transcending the things that had brought them to that particular point.
Of course, one must realize that changes--such RADICAL changes--don't happen overnight. Excellence and originality comes ony through experimentation, try-and-fail, and a "let's see what we can do now with our equipment" type of attitude that makes original music. Songs have to be played around with, ideas have to be created and abandoned, and often times a band will go through nearly an album's worth of experiments before coming up with something truly great. Admittedly, I don't really know much about the pre-Low Level Owl Appleseed Cast, so I really cannot say if their magnum opus came out of nowhere, or if it was a gradual process.
Lost Songs is an interesting record. It's a new record, but the music's not. Most of the music here was written and initially recorded in during the time that I saw them live, which was a time of transition for the band as well, having just had a lineup change. Apparently, after listening to these songs after a few years had passed, they decided to play around with them, and eventually, Lost Songs was born. According to the liner notes, the band shake-ups eventually resulted in a clean slate music-wise. Probably a good move on their part, considering how generic they were beforehand.
Consider Lost Songs a prequel, if you will, to Low Level Owl. You really can't tell if these songs are indicitive of the changes that were to come, or are a direct result of all of the experimentations that have happened. It's impossible to know, really, how much of what you hear is "old" and how much is "new." Perhaps it's wrong to even worry about things like chronology, and simply enjoy these songs as new recordings. I know it's a moot point, really, but it's hard to understand the context--imagine listening to Radiohead's OK Computer for the first time, with Kid A and Amnesiac as your only reference points to their sound. See the problem?
Either way, for rejected works in progress, these songs make for a surprisingly great album. Indeed, if you look at it as a change in direction from a sinking band, then it's pretty impressive. There's some straightforward emo-ish kind of music here, like "Novice" and "Facing North," but you can feel that something is on the horizion. Songs like "Take" and "House on a Hill" hint at what was to come--if you can really call it a "hint," considering how new these "lost" songs are. "Peril Parts 1, 2, and 3" is my favorite--it's rocky and hard with a hint of interesting atmospheric stuff going on--indeed, like Radiohead, to a lesser extent.
While the notion of Lost Songs as an actual collection of "lost" recordings may seem tenuous at best, that ultimately shouldn't matter, for the music here stands up rather nicely. Maybe I'm just picky about things like that, but it doesn't take away from the fact that Lost Songs is an interesting document of a band at a crossroads. That they chose to abandon their past in favor of a brighter future only shows that such a bold, probably scary at the time, step was indeed the right one. Lost Songs is an interesting and strong document which shows that had their change in direction only stopped here, then it still would have been worthwhile. An interesting document, and it certainly whetts the appetite for what comes next.
--Joseph Kyle
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