obviate media.

What happened to simplicity? Why is it when I go to Ben and Jerry’s I can’t get strawberry ice cream? I mean, I can get it with banana, with chocolate, with no fat, more fat, upside down, and as a t-shirt, but why not plain and simple? Don’t get me wrong I enjoy variety, but why is it so hard to find some of a good old thing anymore? I feel the same about music. There are probably fifty million styles and none of them are what I want. Then a fan will ask you “Do you know what these lyrics mean? There is a story and it’s deep!” Why can’t I find anything that’s simple? Why isn’t there a sound that reminds me of the Rolling Stones or The Beatles?

Oh, wait a second….I just did.

Sparta, (a.k.a. the bastard child of At The Drive-In), is what I have been searching for with it’s third album, Threes. What's it all about? Well, let’s start with what it isn’t. When you pop Threes in you will not get track after track of unpredictability with speeds varying from warp 5 to grass growing. You also will not listen to lyrics that will leave you piecing them together for 2 weeks eventually cursing them and searching Wikipedia for the meaning. No, you will no get any of these things, and if you ask me I couldn’t be happier!

What you do get from Threes is what I’d like to call “good old rock n’ roll”. After listening to this recording I instantly threw on “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones and sat in awe, thinking, “so this is what music was like before!” I didn’t even have to try and compare, it simply came to me. Singer Jim Ward’s voice that is somewhere along the lines of raw and pretty which matches the bands sound phenomenally during these twelve tracks. From the build ups and slow downs of “Untreatable Disease”, to the solid flow of “Taking Back Control” you are welcomed to a world where music doesn’t need to be complex to be enjoyable. I finished the album final track “Translations” satisfied with the world I had just exited, and wanting more of this style of rock music that I can simply only compare to as a heavier version of the Stones or Led Zeppelin’s early years.

Sparta’s Threes may not ever achieve great popularity because of it’s classic rock sensibilities and today’s music climate where there is an emphasis on a bold sounds and cryptic lyrics. I think that there is something any music fan, writer, or performer can take from it, and that is you can’t have of those things without talent, and a good core sound.

Threes will be released October 24.

P.S. It turns out that Strawberry was indeed there, maybe there is still some hope after all.

Sparta - Taking Back Control (mp3)

Posted by Alex on Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 2:42 PM | Permalink