Blasts From The Past: Read Music/Speak Spannish

FFO: AT THE DRIVE IN, COMMANDER VENUS, BRAID, CHRISTIE FRONT DRIVE

Conor Oberst is a talented fellow when you think about it. Not only has he managed to be in one of the most influencal folk/pop bands of all time (Bright Eyes) but he has also managed to carve out an equally praise worthy solo career and appeared in the fabled Park Ave which had members of fellow folk poppers Tilly And The Wall. However the main thing that drives our dear Conor is angst and this leads us nicely onto his hidden gem (and probably my favorite work of his) Desaparecidos.

Desaparecidos was basically a post-hardcore side-project that released one album in 2003 entitled "Read Music/Speak Spanish" which basically slipped under the radar and leaves a lot of people scratching their heads to what exactly it is. The album is full of wailing post-hardcore guitar noises, angular drums and the emotionally tortured yelps of Mr.Oberst (the entire album is about the state of Omaha basically losing its natural beauty to housing developments) which all are normally a Bright Eyes standard but are the songs actually any good when he is more about folk as opposed to At The Drive In style riffment?

I can safely say it's an album that doesn't disappoint, from the opening track "What's new for fall" which is a bitter poke at people who don't care about their surroundings only their dress sense with the surprisingly relevant line "I don't think she likes me, not with this new haircut, no she won't like me, I shouldn't eat so much" through to the strongest song on the album, Man And Wife: The Latter which tackles the thorny issue of divorce and contains more hauntingly prophecies about life in 2011 with lines like "I hope you stay like this forever, right in front of your computer" and "you read just like the bible, 20 centuries of scandal, it all depends on your intergrity" all sound resonantly over a wall of caustic guitars and intricate drum fills. The rest of the album is made up of songs tackling: fast food, internet shopping, shopping malls and on the closing song "Hole In One", selling out your morales to gain property with two very close and barbed attacks in the forms of "buying my records down at a coporate chain and keep telling myself i'm not ashamed" and "I'd sell myself to buy a fucking house" are lyrics which maybe a few musicians to take note of.

Oberst is naturally a very good lyric writer and he had a good band to back him up but a few songs maybe fall a bit short of the mark with "$$$" seeming to easily go on way too long for its 5.12 run time.

But to conclude, this is one hell of a good album and easily one of my favorite records of all time not only on a musical level but also its preaching of a message without getting too bogged down in semantics but a message that can apply to everyone at anytime.

owen xo