The album of the day was Pela’s “Anytown Graffiti”.
When I listened to this record, I felt very connected to its reluctant insistence on its own strength. It’s like, “Oh, hey, I’m uh…don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. I promise.” In this song in particular, “The Trouble with River Cities”, the vocalist seems to be trying to convince himself that he is going to be able to survive whatever he’s going through, but his voice is just…faltering. “Yeah, there’s an undertow,” he says, “but it ain’t got me”. You don’t even need to listen to the words–good, because they’re often incomprehensible–to get what’s going on here. The delivery itself is so evocative as to upstage the lyrics. I dig it.
Weirdly enough, Pela broke up a little under a year ago, just a few years after “Anytown Graffiti” came out and before any of their newer material was officially released.
I listened to the album about four times straight through, then ended up listening to “The Trouble with River Cities” about thirty times on repeat. A solid choice from a defunct rock ‘n roll band to which I will definitely return.
