I've been a fan of Common Children (and all of Marc Byrd's various projects after their demise) since the very first disk. My friend Chad Bonham had a copy of their debut, Skywire, on cassette and let me listen to it during a nighttime drive to a friend's house. He explained that they "are totally awesome" (true), "rock so hard that you need to pad your pants with double-ply Charmin, because of how hard they're going to kick your butt" (also true), and "sound like a mix between Candle Box and Goo Goo Dolls" (very, very, very, absolutely, falsier than the falsiest of false).I heard "Hate" followed by "Treasure" and I was hooked. I won't go too far into that experience, because that album will surely get its own entry eventually. They released the album Delicate Fade not long after and then promptly vanished off the face of the earth. Their label (Tattoo records) was gone, no more tour dates were announced, and there wasn't even a peep of them on the web anywhere. I was shattered.
Years passed, and I had all but given up hope that I would ever hear them again. Then one night, on a whim, I did a search online and found a single splash-page announcing an upcoming 3rd album by Common Children, The Inbetween Time. I freaked out.
Needless to say, I signed up, paid the $15 and waited patiently. Ok, rabidly might be a better adverb there... It arrived. I couldn't make myself wait for the typical "at night, in bed, through headphones" approach I preferred, so I threw it in the player in my car (still at nighttime, thankfully) on a drive out to my grandmother's house in the badlands of far West Tulsa. Winding through rain-covered country roads lined with aged, decaying trees, under the stars, the album unfolded like the masterpiece it is.
On a sonic level, you won't ever find an album with this many guitars layered on top of each other that still sounds this present and clear. Marc Byrd is an unparalleled master of manipulating ambient guitar sounds in my opinion. Your mind bathes, swims, and drowns in a universe of echoes and distant melodies. But the real strength of this album is in the depth of feeling it conveys; a flood of emotions from grit-your-teeth anger to heart breaking sadness, contemplative, aching loss to reverent, bliss-filled awe - all compounded with the overwhelmingly immense scope of the soundscape all around you.
There are no singles on this disk. Nothing "radio-worthy". Nothing that the mainstream music industry would bother giving the time of day. But The Inbetween Time can break you and rebuild you over and over again if you let it.
It's one of the best albums ever released. Ever.
Don't own it yet? Listen & buy it here:
You are right about this album and CC in general, all three of their albums are great... I personally thought each got better as they released them... I remember being floored the first time I heard Stains Of Time from Delicate Fade after what the first album sounded like! This album was their best so far I agree and I just don't understand how so many crappy bands keep making it and they couldn't... I wasn't as much a fan of his stuff after CC but I did dig it in a way. My cousin and I saw them on New Years Eve from 98-99 at a small club in the Dallas area and they were excellent... I don't remember much about it but I do remember that they opened with the song from Delicate Fade that says "I bleed for you I cry for you I throw myself and I break in two..." and he just screamed out those lines and it was so awesome! The album doesn't do his vocals justice!
ReplyDeleteI do wish they'd do something else though, for sure...
Agreed - the Common Children disks just grew by leaps and bounds from one release to the next. I saw them quite a few times on that tour... and it was incredible.
ReplyDelete"Indescreet" is the song you're mentioning. Every single time I hear that part where he's screaming those words and the cello is soaring through the mix, it gives me chills.
Here's hoping we haven't seen the last of them...
Wow, been a while since I wrote that... As I type this I am sitting at work listening to the last CC album... Yeah Indiscreet... It was so rocking that night! Of the three new years eve concerts I attended that was my fave by far... Of course Jackyl was one of them so that's not hard to top! The other was a band called Crimson Glory... They were pretty good too...
ReplyDeleteI haven't enjoyed the solo stuff I have heard by Marc Byrd (the one I recall is GlassByrd I think) but I have enjoyed if I hear him doing background on an album unexpectedly which I remember hearing on a band called Between Thieves back in the day... I'd be super interested for them to put something else out... When the last one came out I remember it was like out of nowhere... No word on it, it was just all of a sudden released...
Marc's "Hammock" albums blow me away. The newest one that just came out this month is GORGEOUS - www.hammockmusic.com. I do miss Marc's rockier side...miss it very much actually.
ReplyDelete-Wes
Agreed Wes - I love the Hammock albums. But I would scream like a 13 year old girl at a Beatles concert if Common Children put out a new album.
ReplyDeleteGood post - just picked this up used myself. I would agree w/ Stephen in that they got better over time. The best stuff on "Skywire" is when Marc wasn't "rocking out" but playing the more mellow or atmospheric stuff. Their debut kind of had a split personality between the more "grunge" kind of thing, and then the sound they developed a lot more (quite successfully) on "Delicate Fade" with a much more atmospheric, dreampop kind of thing. As a metalhead, I rather enjoy when bands rock out and have lots of "oomph" to their sound, but Marc's gritter material always sounded a bit forced to me, as if he was trying to fit a mold. But when he does material like "Delicate Fade", it's magic. Much like The Prayer Chain, he found his voice when he played more softly and didn't "rock" as much.
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