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Doing the Distance<\/i> is full of surprises, especially for listeners who approach it without preconceived notions. After a brief, brass-centric intro (\u201cTheme Music,\u201d) the group shifts into what initially sounds like a kind of Wilco-influenced country rock. But those horns pop back into the mix, alerting the listener that perhaps Snowglobe has a wider musical vision. And then when those keening cellos break through, you begin to suspect that things are gonna get weird.<\/p>\n
But wait: a few seconds more, and the song settles into its groove, a tuneful pop\/rock\/alt-country mix. Okay, so that\u2019s<\/em> what this album is about, with a nice if conventional lead guitar break? Nope! That second tune, \u201cLoaded Gun\u201d runs just over two and a half minutes, and slides smoothly into the brief \u201cComforted,\u201d which has more in common with Magical Mystery Tour<\/i> crossed with some Olivia Tremor Control.<\/p>\n You get the idea, I hope. Doing the Distance<\/i> isn\u2019t a collection of songs as much as it is a fully-formed cohesive work. The songs don\u2019t tumble into one another; there\u2019s careful planning at work here. The tunes hang together, each one logically following the next. \u201cMs. June\u201d is astounding, a folky pop tune that may well conjure thoughts of Preservation<\/i>-era Kinks: a strong melody, an acoustic-and-brass core, and yet it rocks. Its stinging lead guitar work is from the Neil Young and Crazy Horse school, yet it\u2019s so brief that it avoids self-indulgence.<\/p>\n Sure, it\u2019s idiosyncratic. Unless you\u2019re somehow well-acquainted with the individual songs on Doing the Distance<\/em>, you won\u2019t know when one tune ends and the next begins; you\u2019ll gain a sense after a song is underway. And that\u2019s fine: this album \u2013 made in 2005 \u2013 is very much of the \u201clisten to it all the way through\u201d school, which makes its new availability on vinyl especially welcome.<\/p>\n The hazy, laid-back vocal work may not be to every listener\u2019s taste. But it\u2019s worth noting that the guys in Snowglobe are better singers than, say, Wayne Coyne. And he\u2019s<\/i> done just fine. So even if the singing on Doing the Distance<\/i> doesn\u2019t initially grab you, you\u2019d be well advised to give the record time to win you over.<\/p>\n This is one intimate record. The production values are top-notch, but there\u2019s something about the way it was recorded that gives it a you-are-there feel, that the drawing-room piano is mere feet away from you. And highlights abound: \u201cMaster of Forgotten Works\u201d is such a gem, with a delightfully cluttered arrangement in which brass and twiddly-knob synths engage in crosstalk while the core guitar\/bass\/drums parts move a catchy, infectious melody forward. Think of it a sort of cousin to OTC\u2019s \u201cJumping Fences\u201d in that its irresistible melody is over far too soon. The good news is that there are even more wonders to behold, so let the record keep spinning.<\/p>\n The songs and arrangements are nicely varied, but there\u2019s a unity of purpose that serves as a sonic glue, holding the thing together and making the whole greater than the sum of the (already impressive) individual pieces. The impressionistic, atmospheric linking tracks have their charms, but it\u2019s the song-y tunes like \u201cChanges\u201d \u2013 a tune that answers the question, \u201cWhat would Flaming Lips sound like if they leaned slightly in a country direction?\u201d \u2013 in which Snowglobe truly excels.<\/p>\n Plenty of those Elephant 6 bands \u2013 and their like-minded fellow travelers \u2013 have attempted to make a Pet Sounds Redux<\/i> or a Son of Sgt. Pepper<\/i> with varying degrees of success. Doing the Distance<\/em> may not quite scale those heights in the ears of today\u2019s listener, but if you dig those and you have a mind that\u2019s open to indie rethinks of those grand designs, this is an album you need to hear. And hear more than once.<\/p>\n Y<\/b><\/i>ou May Also Enjoy<\/b><\/i>: my review of the vinyl reissue of Snowglobe\u2019s 2002 album, <\/a>Our Land Brains<\/i>.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Doing the Distance is full of surprises, especially for listeners who approach it without preconceived notions. After a brief, brass-centric intro (\u201cTheme Music,\u201d) the group shifts into what initially sounds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,62,64,65],"tags":[4504],"class_list":["post-21427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indie","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","tag-snowglobe","cat-39-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21427"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21446,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21427\/revisions\/21446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}