The softer half (Use Your Illusion II) to the double album release that is Bulldozer & Bubblegum... it's really hard to not slip on this record and sorta lose yourself.
The first track - Now Navigate is a Paul Simony number that opens with the following lyrics:
There are tiers, as in levels, to reality
On the industrial corner of North 17th Street & Wythe
Two black public high school kids watch a Nordic model get photographed
To them, she is lunar, impossible, alien life
The album sorta took root within me from that very moment and It hasn't let go.
I really don't know what to add to this album review, but to say that it's a top shelf release from an artist that takes a number emotional risks to reveal things about himself to the world.
In those revelations... clarity is sorta mapped out for him and the listener as the themes are incredibly relatable to anyone with a fucking heart.
Take for example the track Little Bulldozer - a song that I now associate to someone in my life. For reasons that I can't seem to explain... I always feel closer when I can soundtrack a person and a relationship to a song. It connects the complicated dots I have in my uncommitted heart. At some point... I'm going to break down and text her something late at night and close it with - from "your Bigger Bulldozer"
Then there's Couldn't Be Happier... an homage (in my head) to GnR's Don't Cry. I found this song to be applicable to an estranged relationship/friendship with someone from Michigan who is now residing in Chicago.
We're currently not speaking... we send drunken texts to one another. But hold out on things coming around at some point...
In context, the progress is difficult to see
It's increments, not mile jumps
The grace collects and waits for us
To catch up.
Couldn't Be Happier - Kevin Devine
Stand Out Tracks:
