{"id":880,"date":"2010-06-09T16:09:18","date_gmt":"2010-06-09T16:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/?p=880"},"modified":"2010-06-10T16:21:46","modified_gmt":"2010-06-10T16:21:46","slug":"the-meadowlands-the-wrens-flying-high-back-then-but-now-on-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/2010-06\/the-meadowlands-the-wrens-flying-high-back-then-but-now-on-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"The Meadowlands–The Wrens Flying High Back Then, But Now on Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

We don’t know if it’s possible given our (and lots of others’) incessant warblings about this band, but in case you have not heard The Wrens and their 2003 record “The Meadowlands,” we think it’s high time.\u00a0 We have played this record to exhaustion since we first discovered it in 2004 and never grow tired of it.\u00a0 Every song (yes, every dang song–well maybe not that last one or two) is a mini-masterpiece.<\/p>\n

The Wrens have a storied past.\u00a0 They put out two records in the 1990s (the second, “Secaucus,” in 1996) to justifiable critical raves, and then suffered serious record label setbacks and band difficulties, resulting in their follow-up, The Meadowlands, not being released until 2003.\u00a0 And in the seven years since 2003 and now?\u00a0 A couple of singles and compilation contributions, and that’s it.\u00a0\u00a0 There have been some live shows and lots of rumors and innuendo regarding tracks being written and some cut (and a few actually released), but no new longplayer has been launched since The Meadowlands.\u00a0 The wait became so interminable for some that in 2009 Magnet magazine established a Wren’s Watch<\/a> (a hilarious page).<\/p>\n

(As an aside, the great Santa Barbara band, Buellton<\/a>, has now exceeded the Wrens-esque delay in their follow-up to their star-spangled 2001 record, “Avenue of the Flags.”\u00a0 Beware Buellton:\u00a0 we are seriously considering establishing the “Belated Buellton Bulletin” on these very pages.)<\/p>\n

Suffice it to say there’s a large indie community out there eagerly awaiting the next Wrens record.\u00a0 And\/or tour.\u00a0 At some point both will happen, and we won’t miss it.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, check out a few seminal songs from The Meadowlands.<\/p>\n

One of our favorite songs of all time is She Sends Kisses.<\/em> While some find the lyrics of this song of lost-love too “emo,” to those we would heartily recommend an urgent soul-implant.\u00a0 Against appropriately mournful organ, at second :17 the doleful vocals enter, elegantly-harmonized.\u00a0\u00a0 The singer will “cue every memory at half-speeds” and then lists TMI details of the courtship (the well-wrought “hopes pinned to poses honed in men\u2019s room mirrors”–what dude hasn’t?– being the least discomforting).\u00a0 The title chorus is first heard, high and barely discernible, at 1:29, but the second time at 2:58 the singer wails in full.\u00a0 After a series of key changes, the chorus is kicked up yet again at 4:55.\u00a0 And the lyrics “she sends kisses in envelopes stamped w\/ \u2018Hope & Hearts\u2019 – ripped right open” convey the pain.\u00a0 A great song.<\/p>\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/03-She-Sends-Kisses.mp3|titles=03 She Sends Kisses]\n

One of our other favorites is This Boy is Exhausted<\/em>, wherein the band voices its frustration with its struggles (analogized to “splitting rocks, cutting diamonds” for “8 years long”).\u00a0 But, set against a storming melody, we also hear of the intermittent epiphanies and the revival of their music that carries them on (“but then once a while we’ll play a show then that makes it worthwhile,” and “then Greg plugs in, a treble checking that says we might win”).\u00a0 Ultimately the sheer exhaustion is felt and heard in lead and harmony vocals alike, but with glimmers of hope.<\/p>\n

The Wrens–This Boy is Exhausted<\/em><\/p>\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/04-This-Boy-Is-Exhausted.mp3|titles=04 This Boy Is Exhausted]\n

And in Happy<\/em> a jilted lover (perhaps the same from She Sends Kisses<\/em>) initially bemoans a love, but eventually sends vehement kiss-offs to the same girl.\u00a0 The change in tone in this one song is stunning (it took Noah and the Whale an entire album to do the same in its highly-laudable “The First Days of Spring” earlier this year).\u00a0\u00a0 The change in lyrical tone is perfectly paralleled by the increasing tension of the band’s music.\u00a0 That tension builds throughout until the release at 4:27.<\/p>\n

The Wrens–Happy<\/em><\/p>\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/02-Happy.mp3|titles=02 Happy]\n

What we miss about these Wrens is their phenomenal sense of dynamics and the ability in one song to capture so much.<\/p>\n

Hey Wrens:\u00a0 Please put the Wren Watch out of business and give us another masterwork soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We don’t know if it’s possible given our (and lots of others’) incessant warblings about this band, but in case you have not heard The Wrens and their 2003 record “The Meadowlands,” we think it’s high time.\u00a0 We have played this record to exhaustion since we first discovered it in 2004 and never grow tired […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}