ost modern rock has little to offer us in the way of innovation. Listening to the radio will leave you wondering why the last forty minutes was the same, song after song of sheer imitation. Heck, most of my favorite records this year have been by imitators (albeit very good ones). The Strokes are a more vague form of The Stooges; the Shins, a cross between Paul Simon and Brian Wilson. Even Destroyer, who at times sound like a Lou Reed cover band, bring very little to the table in the way of new sounds. The Microphones, on the other hand, spew innovation every second of this disc. From the beginning, where bouncy acoustic guitars give way to Phil Elvrum’s sing-speak vocals, this album promises something you have never heard before and delivers it, perhaps more than you’d expect. He sings oddly inspirational lyrics (for a northwestern band, at least) to a healthy backdrop of throbbing sounds. As the arc of the guitar’s bounce gets smaller and smaller, you think to yourself, ‘this is going to be a great album’, you prepare yourself for the next song when it springs to life again, exploding with distorted drums and additional guitar sounds. These surprises are littered throughout the cd, the inclusion of horns in ‘The Moon’, the home piano tones in ‘I am bored’, and the periodic explosions of sound. Such special sounds, combined with the newly heartfelt lyrics of Mr. Elvrum, make this one of the can’t miss albums of 2001.


This is certainly my new favorite Microphones record, which is saying a lot. The last Microphones album was somewhat of a disappointment for me after hearing the imaginative soundscapes of ‘Don’t Wake Me Up’, it was a bit too pandering, with the primarily straightforward pop in the beginning and the more atmospheric experiments placed so appropriately at the end. The whole album seemed a bit contrived, though the inventive arrangements were not absent, it was heavily lacking in soul. The soul is back here, in full force, with the generally gentle atmosphere being met quite strongly by some of the heaviest rocking to come out of the northwest, the contrast is brilliant.


Phil Elvrum recorded the majority of this album by himself, and it shows. This music is definitely the most personal and affecting he has ever attempted. If you are looking for some great music, performed in a way you have probably never heard before, and more imaginative than an art professor on LSD, ‘The Glow, part two’ is for you.