The sophomore effort. It's a crossroad in the lifespan
of nearly every band and let's be honest
not always the kindest fork in the road. The sophomore
effort is what separates artists from one-hit wonders,
careers from brief flirtations with the music industry,
and often times, men from boys. For SoCal introspective
rock quintet Something Corporate, it just so happens
to be all three. But the similarities between Something
Corporate and the sophomore successes of their peers
end there. It's said that you have a lifetime to write
your first record and a mere six months to scribble
out your second usually on the road. As a result,
many sophomore efforts involve a bevy of songs complaining
about becoming the very thing the artist always wanted
to be: A rock star on the road, missing home, their
girlfriends, their favorite Laz-Z-Boy chairs. Boring.
On North, the band's follow-up to their 2002 Drive-Thru/MCA
Records debut, Leaving Through the Window a
250,000 seller based largely on relentless touring
and word of mouth Something Corporate bucks
that idea in favor of a more cerebral concept: Simply
being away. "It has a lot to do with the effect
of being away from people and situations in life that
you've never been away from and how being that far
away can make you isolate yourself further,"
explains singer/songwriter Andrew McMahon. "As
a result, it's a much more serious and moodier record."
Where Leaving Through the Window could be considered
the band's summer album, recorded amongst friends
in Santa Monica, Calif., peppered with boy-wants-girl/boy-gets-girl/boy-loses-girl
tales of carefree adolescence, North is it's polar
opposite. The band immersed themselves in Seattle's
Robert Lang Studios over a two-month period in May
and June, away from hometown distractions, away from
the fun and sun of Southern California, away from
everything, essentially. "I think I left the
studio three or four times and it was to go to the
bank to make sure I had enough money to eat that week,"
says McMahon. "The whole idea was just to completely
avoid anything but the record." The results of
self-imposed isolation from everything besides their
collective musical vision are stunning. North is a
more coherent record than its predecessor is; a more
focused affair crafted around emotive, heartfelt lyrics
and earnest musicianship that weave a lucid texture
through each track. To create the latter, the band
pulled the plug on most studio gimmicks. "Rather
than employing cheap production tricks to give the
record more body, we wanted to do that only musically
-- only though our parts and only though development
of the band as opposed to development of production,"
says McMahon. "Its not that we wanted to make
it sound like a White Stripes record or anything like
that, but we wanted to make it sound really rich without
having to employ techniques like guitar doubling and
vocal doubling and all those things that you hear
as a typical staple of modern bands." To create
the former, songwriters McMahon and guitarist Josh
Partington locked themselves away in a room and made
sure they met eye to eye on where the songs that would
eventually make up North were headed. "We wanted
it to include the different facets of our band but,
at the same time, really showcase some sort of growth
from the last album," says Partington. That lyrical
growth is immediately evident on North, with such
somber tales as "Only Ashes" and "Me
and the Moon" clearly coming from a much darker
place than high school bullies and punk rock princesses.
A dark tale of freedom at the ultimate price, "Me
and the Moon" paints a chilling reality right
from its opening line; "It's a good year for
a murder
" "It's about this woman who
kills her husband after many years of noot being fulfilled
in her relationship and not being where she wants
to be in life," says McMahon. "She is targeting
this man as the reason why she didnt become
the things she thought she would be when she was young."
On "Only Ashes" -- whose tsunami-sized guitar
riff is probably the hardest lick the band has recorded
to date a tale of introspection turns to contempt
over an expansive rock track. "It's all about
frustration and how it seems like sometimes the worse
things that can happen to you, you end up doing to
yourself," explains Partington. "It's probably
the most personal song I have ever written. It's my
favorite on this album just because of that. I felt
it was the first time I was ever completely honest
in what I was trying to say. I didnt leave out
anything." Partington also penned the album's
lead single, the anthem "Space," which features
the band's trademark piano feeding off a sprawling
guitar riff. "There is nothing more frustrating
then having somebody love you more than life itself
but can't necessarily even come close to grasping
what you are all about at times," says Partington
of the song's theme. The track, along with the gorgeous
"Break Myself," best sums up the personal
demons North is attempting to expel. "To me,
'Break Myself' is all about total desperation,"
says McMahon. "Just being in that place where
you can't do anything to help anyone. What do you
do when you're so far away from somebody who needs
you and you want to be there but you cant?
That's not to say North is a downer quite the
contrary. Something Corporate has simply trimmed the
fat this time out and, essentially, matured as songwriters.
The result is a work of startling beauty a
portrait of life set to a soundtrack of furiously
catchy urban hymns. "It's not that we didnt
want to have pop sensibilities within it but we just
didnt want North to be this happy pop album,
says Partington. "We just felt that wasn't the
direction we were going as songwriters. We felt we
needed to write an album that's a little bit more
serious. I think the last record was more about us
trying to find a voice. Now we found that voice and
this is what it sounds like when we use it."
Band description courtesy of Luckymanonline.com
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