{"id":28891,"date":"2020-03-12T12:04:23","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T20:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/?p=28891"},"modified":"2020-03-13T13:04:11","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T21:04:11","slug":"resuscitation-empty-country-puts-the-paddles-to-the-lefort-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/2020-03\/resuscitation-empty-country-puts-the-paddles-to-the-lefort-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Resuscitation–Empty Country Puts the Paddles To The Lefort Report"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It’s been a long, long, long, lonely time. But revival is upon us. Long ago in 2016 we awarded (yet unpublished–the lameness never lets ya down) sadly unsung Philly band Cymbals Eats Guitars<\/a><\/strong>, with our awards for our favorite band, album (Pretty Years<\/em><\/strong>), song (Finally<\/em><\/strong>) and live performance (Swedish American Music Hall<\/strong> in SF) for the year. Apparently as a result, Cymbals Eats Guitars<\/strong> was forced to call it quits. Death knell and all, ya know. But the cognoscenti knew that CEG’s <\/strong>leader, Joseph D’Agostino<\/strong>, would not just ride off into that Philly-cheese sunset. D’Agostino<\/strong> has way too much talent and far too many stories to tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter D’Agostino’s<\/strong> new band Empty Country<\/a><\/strong>. More than a decade after forming CEG, D\u2019Agostino will soon release the first, eponymously-titled album under the moniker Empty Country<\/strong>. Based on Empty Country’s<\/strong> press release we know that D’Agostino wrote, arranged, and produced the album himself (with co-production and engineering by Kyle Gilbride<\/strong> of Swearin\u2019<\/strong>). And the album\u2019s stellar first single Ultrasound<\/em><\/strong> featured the erstwhile Charles Bissell<\/strong> (of the cultish Lefort<\/strong>-faves The Wrens<\/strong>–honestly has there ever been a better album than The Meadowlands<\/em><\/strong>?) on backing vocals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since that beguiling intro, Empty Country<\/strong> has released the world-worthy Marian<\/em><\/strong> and most recently the stentorian Swim<\/em><\/strong> (evidently an acronym for “Someone Who Isn’t Me”). Both songs feature D’Agostino’s brilliant, literate lyrics (check both at bottom). And Swim’s<\/em><\/strong> melody immediately grabs you and suckles you with its treacly tones and instrumentation. It is simply a tour de force that’s bound to be high on our Best Songs of 2020<\/strong> list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to D’Agostino, Swim<\/em><\/strong> is a character sketch, according to “a composite of several people I met or observed while living in Kensington, a neighborhood in Philadelphia gravely affected by the ongoing opioid emergency in the United States. One day my wife Rachel pointed out in passing that some of our neighbors had old faces. She didn’t mean “old” in the sense that they were aging prematurely (though some certainly were), but that they had the faces of Dustbowl-era farmers we had seen in books and films. I began imagining a young man suffering from temporal dysphoria (feeling that one was born into the wrong era and strongly identifying with a bygone time), drinking and otherwise numbing himself to tamp down overwhelming anemoia and sadness. Robbing condos freshly erected in adjoining neighborhoods. Doing harm.  Blacking out, driving drunk, hurting those he should love, but simply cannot. Dreaming of leaving forever the bricky mazes of row homes that open into wide empty avenues.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to Swim<\/em><\/strong> below, followed by Marian<\/em><\/strong>. With these songs as an intro, we can be assured that with their new album, the Empty Country<\/strong> will be filling up our hearts and minds. Stay tuned for more good news from this band.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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