Let This Be the Last Night We Care - Alcoholic Faith Mission

Let This Be the Last Night We Care

Alcoholic Faith Mission
PonyRec / Paper Garden Records.

SCQ Rating: 83%

In early December, maybe one week before I wrapped 2009 into the year-end picnic basket I call SCQ’s Top Twenty Albums list, 421 Wythe Avenue fell heavily into my lap. With distinct yet connected songs like ‘Escapism’ and ‘Sweet Evelyn’ in tow, 421 Wythe Avenue’s varied flow of bohemian strife and loneliness lent well to those early winter days spent alone with open-flapped boxes, as I hurried my farewell from Toronto. Given that I still listen to it often, I have little doubt Alcoholic Faith Mission’s sophomore could’ve landed on my year-end list had I discovered it a month or two earlier.

But why get hung up on the would’ve-could’ve’s when Alcoholic Faith Mission, easily Denmark’s most promising export, have already churned out another new album? Hot on the heels of their non-stop touring schedule, Let This Be the Last Night We Care wastes no time lamenting their old Brooklyn address, beefing up their quirky anthems with added bombast. From the onset this more muscled approach proves an irresistible upgrade, igniting the determined percussion of ‘My Eyes To See’ and searing into a festival-worthy chorus for ‘Got Love? Got Shellfish!’. Crowding the record’s top half, you’d be forgiven for assuming Alcoholic Faith Mission had rid themselves of the melancholy that shone like rain on Wythe Avenue’s windows – but fear not! As if the Copenhagen quintet found a way to harness those emotional peaks that scattered past releases, Let This Be the Last Night We Care uses those sporadic cases of cathartic genius as a leaping-off point. How else can one explain the chills caused by ‘Put the Virus In You’’s elegiac piano progression? Or the goosebumps behind ‘Sobriety Up and Left’ with Thorben Seiero Jensen’s lyrical stand-still “I heard you called but I was spitting up blood”? These haunting slow-burners not only share the same bolder arrangements that shine on Let This Be the Last Night We Care’s upbeat tracks, but also a genuine passion that energizes the record as a whole. Without doubt, these are heart-on-sleeve songs, heated and longing, but performed with such convincing gusto, Alcoholic Faith Mission turn a pity-party into a breathtaking, combustible listening experience.

There remain a few worthwhile Broken Social Scene comparative points, namely in Alcoholic Faith Mission’s buoyant yet layered instrumentation, but Let This Be the Last Night We Care capitalizes on a few hard-earned, home-made distinctions. Over the course of three and a half minutes, ‘Season Me Right’ morphs from the comforting folk of their last record into a forward-thinking exercise of tuneful dissonance. And words can hardly express the wall-to-wall beauty of ‘Honeydrip’, a late album highlight that showcases the band’s trademarked group-chorus - all voices clamouring together without overpowering one another - while pushing their songwriting to new heights. Explosive and wistful, Let This Be the Last Night We Care somehow begs to be blasted from the stereo as frequently as it deserves careful headphone attention. Year-end lists, get ready!

421 Wythe Avenue - Alcoholic Faith Mission

421 Wythe Avenue

Alcoholic Faith Mission
Paper Garden Records.

SCQ Rating: 79%

‘We All Have Our Shortcomings’, the single of sorts from Copenhagen’s Alcoholic Faith Mission, struck a deep chord in me; one that has scarred over and been re-opened a million times since I bought my first 7” single in the third grade. Thorben Seiero Jensen’s pained vocals layered hauntingly over a lilting acoustic coda have barely settled the emotional barometer before the five-piece begin amping up the rhythm section, and what spills perfectly out of this tense build-up is that conservative yet fresh-faced indie-ballad that references Snow Patrol as easily as it does Arcade Fire. Which is to say that few bands are so capable of indie-crossover stardom yet as equally undercover as Paper Garden Records' Alcoholic Faith Mission are right now. Expect that to change within the next few minutes…

As great an introduction to the band as ‘We All Have Our Shortcomings’ is, that potential hit is but a wave in the repressed, overcast ocean that is 421 Wythe Avenue. Lyrically tumultuous but showcased with an emboldened bravado, this sophomore drifts rather nonchalantly between serene instrumentals (‘Someone Else’) and stomping heartbreak anthems (‘Painting Animals in Watercolors’), multitracked and ghostly girl/boy harmonies (‘Escapism’) and cathartic seething (‘Sweet Evelyn’). The job of integrating so much variety thankfully doesn’t fall squarely in the lap of the producer, although the production is fantastic, carrying tinges of morning-ambience and an electronic edge that renders every note and vocal pitch-perfect. What really umbrellas these songs of oozing sentiment is Alcoholic Faith Mission’s command of songwriting, which not only disregards the go-to rules on introspective, woe-is-me composing, but in the stitches of this song-cycle pinpoints a true nostalgia for 421 Wythe Avenue. Be it an old house you passed every day for a year or an apartment that witnessed the exhausting details of your formative years, 421 Wythe Avenue builds from the foundation up (through the rites of yearning on ‘Escapism’) and establishes fine minutiae like twenty-something disaffectedness (‘Gently’) and urban proximity (the late-night jazz moaning in ‘Time’). Am I getting carried away? Perhaps… but getting to know an album of such introspection entails certain gap-filling, and for my imagination’s worth, no sonic frill is wasted.

Seemingly complicated but uncluttered, 421 Wythe Avenue is a worthy colleague to the work of Broken Social Scene; both emit emotional indie-rock that feels breezy and uncalculated yet Alcoholic Faith Mission aren’t afraid to occasionally fall off the proverbial cliff. Nothing about ‘Sweet Evelyn’, an eleven-minute rumination of repeated acoustic chords and chiming ambiance, should’ve been a good idea. Placed just before the album’s finale and barely evolving throughout its epic running-time, ‘Sweet Evelyn’ somehow earns its indulgences and trumps half the familiar rock build-ups you’ve learned to tolerate throughout life. Alcoholic Faith Mission won’t revolutionize or champion a genre this crowded but, with 421 Wythe Avenue, they’ve certainly landed a promising square on the indie-chessboard.