The Meadowlands
by The Wrens

From Brad1770 TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/02/2018 00:20 | #219063 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Wow it beggars belief that an album as good as this one currently sits at # 972 on the BEA Over Chart as per August 2018 whilst garbage like The Rolling Stones 'Aftermath' sits inside the top 500

Where to begin with this album ? Wire to wire its superb from the unconventional opening salvo of "The House That Guilt Built" into the wonderful "Happy" and "She Sends Kisses" there isn't a weak or filler moment here

Favourite lyrics are from track 11 "Everyone Choose Sides" which sums up this album perfectly"

'Thirteen grand
A year in the Meadowlands
Bored and rural-poor , Lord, at 35 , right?
I am the best seventeen-year old ever'

Oh and the wait for The Wrens next album continues into 2018 , now at 15 years and counting giving Tool a run for their album wait money

'The Meadow-lands' is essential Indi Rock

80/100 (Edited)

From CellarDoor TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/18/2013 18:58 | #84159 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Songs for the emo version of the high school girl on the cover of If You're Feeling Sinister.

From Dingerbell 01/08/2014 18:04 | #100229 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I completely and utterly love this album. If I could marry an album, I would totally marry this. It's like every song is the best pop song you've ever heard, and they're all together in one album. Choosing a favourite track on this is impossible, so my favourite is Happy, She Sends Kisses, This Boy Is Exhausted, Hopeless, Boys, You Won't and Everyone Choose Sides. That's not to say the other songs aren't fantastic, because they are. And underrated gem that even I think I underrate.

From paladisiac TOP 100 COMMENTER 12/11/2011 02:48 | #32635 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

i can't really make out what he's singing most of the time. The likeability-to-understandability ratio is probably the highest with this album. The production mix is dirty -- acoustic guitars even feel muddled. Dirty guitars creep up and vocals are often buried in the mix, like on "happy" and "per second second". But there's something in the dirt that's worthwhile, like the paean "she sends kisses" which inaudibly opens "Ten tons against me and you've gone / I put your favorite records on / And sit around" with a chorus of "'All's well in hell and here's hoping' / She sends kisses". They often (now) remind me of broken social scene with their extended rocking-yet-abstract jams, like "this boy's exhausted". "she sends kisses" and "this boy's exhausted" are a good 1-2 punch punctuated with the latter's chorus grunt. "hopeless" cascades guitars downward like rain, opening "oh no, not this time too / i'm the only one you got to use / and if I tell you all this could be / nothing more than a way to leave you / would you want me? " before the later flood of bitter-yet-restrained emotion ditching the now-ex. "boys you won't" (w/lyric "Boys you won't remember / from the minute / you walked into the room / every letter started brokenhearted / and ended way too soon ") rocks with feedback-induced-tension. These songs remind me of the lo-fi guitar elements the pixies shot for. There's a lot of girl trouble, as on "ex-girl collection" opening "4 Fourth floor room / each girl I've brought back home to bloom / All fold on close inspection". The other highlights are "everyone choose sides" and "this is not what you had planned". "everyone choose sides" is a muddled rocker about conflicts with their record label opening "..13 grand / A year in the Meadowlands / Bored and rural-poor, lord, at 35, right? / I'm the best 17 year old ever " with battle-cry chorus "everyone choose sides / the whole to-do of what to do for money / everyone choose sides / Poorer or not this year and hell's the difference". "this is not what you had planned" pleasantly sticks out as the only piano-based song on the whole album, a simple, seemingly-impromptu piece that ends with an emotional purge.

From pearljammer13 TOP 100 COMMENTER 11/23/2012 23:57 | #55756 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

More people need to hear this album. I'd never heard of it, then I saw it ranked very high on a site's greatest indie albums list, so I gave it a listen. It's very very good. A sad album in the best of ways.