Posts Tagged ‘Dexter Jones Circus Orchestra’

Album of the day: Dexter Jones’ Circus Orchestra – If Light Can’t Save Us, I Know Darkness Will

Posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Dexter Jones Circus Orchestra

Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: Despite the fun-loving feel of the music — like retro ‘60s pop rock gone warm fuzz with an ear for well-placed solos and grooves — the lyrics and themes of Stockholm five-piece Dexter Jones’ Circus Orchestra’s third album, If Light Can’t Save Us, I Know Darkness Will (Fuzzorama), are almost unremittingly bleak, and that bleakness is mostly self-directed. On opener “If Bars Could Bend,” we’re treated to the line, “I am a great shadow in your life, I bring you down/ I try to make it all good, but my words drown.” On centerpiece and Thin Lizzy-fied album highlight “Little Man,” we get “I need to kill what I’ve become/A dirty fly on golden grain,” and even on the more outward closer “Sad World,” the attitude is still much the same: “We’re sliding down the hole/Somebody save our souls.”

It’s an oppressive attitude that, if you weren’t paying attention to what you were hearing, you might just glance past and miss entirely because the music hardly feels mired in the same way at all. Even a cut like “Mentally Insane,” which shows up later on If Light Can’t Save Us, I Know Darkness Will, and is maybe a little darker sounding musically is nowhere near as dreary in guitar, bass and drums as it is vocally. The dual nature of the release can be looked at one of two ways: it’s either incongruous or really interesting. Maybe it can be a bit of both.

Continue reading:  The Obelisk » Blog Archive » Riding the Emotional Rollercoaster with Dexter Jones’ Circus Orchestra.
(Very special thanks to JJ Koczan for the kind permission)

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