You’re Beautiful But Your Heart’s On Fire

Faunts “Memories Of Places We’ve Never Been” – This song is driving along the same star-lit road as The Smiths’ “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out,” but these love-sick passengers are lucky enough not to get hit head-on by that double-decker bus. In spite of the obvious similarities to that song, the track owes a greater debt to the melancholy hits of 70s soft rock and lite FM, from the graceful shift into the heartstring-tugging chorus to the gorgeous Fleetwood Mac-esque guitar tone on the verses. (Click here for the official Faunts site.)

Brakes “You’ll Always Have A Place To Stay” – It’s fairly common that I find myself having to choose between two songs from a record in order to determine what gets posted on this site, and more often than not, the decision is based on what I can come up with in terms of writing the review. This is definitely the case for Brakes – I chose “Heard About Your Band” over “You’ll Always Have A Place To Stay” because it was much easier to write about, and I was in a rush that day. As good as that song was, “You’ll Always Have A Place To Stay” is the song with greater staying power, the one that has left a lingering imprint on my psyche. I don’t think it was ever their intention, but Brakes manage to fuse the epic desperation and loneliness of Jandek to the construct of the alt-rock ballad, which is actually sort of brilliant since it allows for the emotional release that Jandek almost never provides in his own music. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)