Youth Detention

構成数 : 1枚
合計収録時間 : 00:58:09
Personnel: Lee Bains III (vocals, guitar, keyboards, sampler); Tim Kerr (guitar, percussion, background vocals); Eric Wallace (guitar, background vocals); Adam Williamson (acoustic guitar, background vocals); Blake Williamson (drums, percussion, background vocals); Lynn Bridges (percussion); Jeremy Ferguson (loops, sampler). Audio Mixer: Lynn Bridges. Recording information: Battletapes, Nashville, TN. Editor: Caleb Johnson . Photographer: Brett Falcon. Lee Bains III has a lot to say, and no one is going to stop his from saying it. While stories of life in the modern South dominated Bains' first two albums with his band the Glory Fires, on his third long-player, Bains steps up on his soapbox and delivers a long, impassioned, powerfully articulate speech on the state of America and the trials and tribulations of its young people. 2017's Youth Detention is a furiously wordy set of songs, written with the eloquent rage of a gifted poet as he tosses out thumbnail essays on race, gender, class, identity, hope, its absence, and what it all means to one guy with a guitar from Alabama. Youth Detention has (and needs) a lyric sheet, in part because these songs are so heavy with verbiage that Bains has trouble cramming everything he has to say into the framework of his melodies, and it would be impossible to sort out what he's singing in "Tongues of Flame" without the benefit of the booklet. This album does suffer from one of the same unfortunate production choices that marred 2014's Dereconstructed: namely, the vocals are low in the mix, with the audio giving a bit too much room to the guitars and not enough to Bains as he sings, especially given how smart and compelling the lyrics happen to be. (And the album's production is honestly ambitious, incorporating found sounds, manipulated field recordings, and sonic atmospheres in the spaces between the tracks.) But the guitars are plenty articulate on Youth Detention, too, and from a musical standpoint, this is Bains' hardest and most satisfying album to date. Playing with a taut fury that sits somewhere between hard rock and first-era punk, Bains and his bandmates -- Eric Wallace on guitar, Adam Williamson on bass, and Blake Williamson on drums -- rock with a streetwise swagger that comes straight from the heart and gives these tunes plenty of sweat and muscle that prevent this from ever sounding pretentious, no many how many words Bains tosses into the mix. In many ways, Youth Detention is a flawed album that bites off more than it can chew, but what's right about it makes it one of the most powerful and honestly moving American rock albums in recent memory, and it's the work of a rising talent who deserves a far wider hearing. ~ Mark Deming