Even if the stars go out and the moon bleeds out...--Pernice Brothers--The World Won't End

The World Won't End is a bona fide American classic my friends. Without all that hype and publicity that tends to sell music these days. You might remember Joe Pernice from his duet with Fergie at last years Grammy awards. Then again, as hell has not frozen over quite yet, if do you remember this you are even more delusional than I am. I don't think the deserved popularity of the Pernices, Scud Mountain Boys or any of Joe Pernice's side projects will stray very far outside the critics' circle any time soon. Which is something I don't have any rational answer for. The Pernice Brothers have made some of the best music of the last ten years, and on top of that, all of their music has been consistently great throughout their career.

I was first introduced to the band's music with their first album, Overcome By Happiness, an album that was a simply beautifully and mournful string-drenched piece of chamber pop. An absolutely awesome album that was stuck in my Cd player for a month.

But today I would like to talk a little about their second album, which might be my favorite album of the previous decade, The World Won't End. For me, this album goes beyond greatness and is an essential recording that should be in any respectable music collection with your Kinks, Beatles, Rolling Stones discs. Every time I listen to the album I hear something new, and I am just awed with the level of quality--one stunning song follows another. I was hoping for an album approximating the level of their first, and they ratcheted it up a few significant notches. It's a better album than most artist's greatest hits collections. The strings from the debut album are still there, but The World Won't End album is more diverse and uptempo.

In a lot of ways the album is insidious, as Pernice exploits my childhood love of A.M. radio, pounded into my eardrums as I sat quietly in my parents car strapped down by a seat belt (Seasons in the Sun,Up, Up & Away, Hooked on a Feeling). Listening to "Magic" by Pilot being blasted out of 8-track players as I rode around the neighborhood on my spider bike.Hearing "Listen What The Man Say" & "Silly Love Songs" everywhere one teenage summer. Trying to sing Beach Boys harmonies (and failing) with my best friend for years and years.But the shiny pop is a trap, a sonic roach motel. The beautiful music belies the beautifully grim brutal lyricism. You could play this for your grandma and she'd have no clue as to the underlying Joy Division-esque calibre of darkness. I say bring on the night!

The first guitar strum of Working Girls (Sunlight Shines), the first song, is almost a statement of purpose here. From the guitar rhythm, the bass kicks in, and suddenly the strings burst across the horizon.  A sad joyous vindication of the day-to-day drag of everyday life. An exemplary start here.



But 7:30 is where this album really gets going, three minutes of stomping masterly pop bliss. But the lyrics.

It would have been nice to be someone
To have and to hold the only one
But when 7:30 comes around
There's nothing there, just bitterness.

There's a fantastic bridge, and just when you think that it couldn't get better, the band goes into a Beach Boy's harmony break that would make Brian Wilson smile.

But choose a track randomly from this album and you will not be disappointed. Take She Heightened Everything, which takes a page from the Buddy Holly songbook but updated with a chorus where Pernice pleads to "keep loving me to death". I have to ask myself how I can enjoy a song with the title "Shaken Baby", but I do. Hey, it's just a metaphor, not a homage to child abuse. I love Joe's whispery voice when it's amplified up to that level--it has an unusual effect on the music, power in fragility. And ending goes on and on and on most memorably.

The think the emotional core of this album is the quietly incendiary Flaming Wreck, where the narrator is sitting calmly as the world is crashing around him. In his words, "sitting stoned, like a jewel eyed baby".

Five miles high
falling down, in a bloody mary
I was all right,
never knew it would be the perfect
last, word I spoke
As the cabin filled with smoke....Did you know I would die for something new?

But I love just as much the segue between the end of 7:30 and Our Time Has Passed's electric piano introduction. Glorious bittersweet string pop with a spectacular bridge. The band makes everything seem so easy. This version of the Pernices is brother Bob on guitar, along with the amazing Peyton Pinkerton. Thom Monahan is on bass, guitars, keys, Laura Stein is on keyboards and piano, and Mike Belitsky on drums. I saw these guys only once, as a warm-up act at the Knitting Factory years ago. They only played for about half an hour but they were a great live band. Joe reminded me of Elvis Costello for some reason--it was either his mannerisms or maybe the beard. I remember he referred to their song Monkey Suit as their prom song. I wish they had played for two hours.

One of the lighter moments on the album is Let That Show, which has a bit of Big Star flavor to it, mixing Radio City guitar twang with Sister Lovers string surges. But behind the levity....

It feels like I'm dying
as I watch you go..
I never let that show.

I would be remiss not to mention the wonderful piano and string pop of Bryte Side which is sublimely visceral bliss with a great string break in the middle. Then there is the lovely cinematic pacing of The Ballad of Bjorn Borg, a great metaphor for moments passing by, here today, gone tomorrow, "killing the endless summer." One of his very best songs, in my opinion, with the great tempo changes and crescendos.

The album ends on a Brazilian note, with the pristinely languid Cronulla Breakdown, with Pernice going bossa nova on us for a track, like an stripped back aperitif to cleanse our palates. The profound lyrics make me jealous; stylistically they evoke the depth of sentiment found in a Brazilian love song. Another Pernice classic.



Even if the stars go out on me tonight
Even if the moon bleeds out its blood for light
I know I can't, take her love
as your memory drifts in, like a samba
It's hard to be true
I'm still in love with you...

Whew!! So if you haven't figured it out by now, I really like this album. But the only album of theirs that I can't recommend yet is their latest, because I haven't bought it or heard it yet. Just before I began this post, I took a look at the Pernice Brothers on-line store, and I noticed that almost their whole discography is available at ridiculously cheap prices, in many cases between $3-5 dollars. I don't know what that means exactly (gulp), but I think that patronizing a great passionate intelligent artist who actually puts his music out on his own label (Ashmont Records) would be a very good thing in these tough economic times. I mean, you could own this amazing album for 5 friggin bucks!! It's record store weekend, so go out and support the arts!!!