CD Odyssey Disc 1926: Clem Snide

I was a bit nervous about squeezing in two reviews this week with a late start after a long weekend. Fortunately, fate intervened with that shortest of listens…an EP. More on this later.

Disc 1926 is…A Beautiful EP

Artist: Clem Snide

Year of Release: 2003

What’s up with the Cover? A woman lifts her skirt in a playful but modest manner. Perhaps she’s dancing, or maybe just showing off her fancy shoes in anticipation of dancing.

How I Came To Know It: I have been a fan of Clem Snide since 2020 when they released “Forever Just Beyond”, but to my chagrin realized they’d already been around twenty years before I ever “discovered” them.

Even worse, a lot of their early albums which I now covet are very hard to find, and as a result I have lurked the “miscellaneous C” section of local record stores for years hoping for a score.

I’ve managed to land two more through this hunt and peck strategy (1999’s “Your Favourite Music” and 2009’s “Hungry Bird”) but five more LPs still elude me.

So when I saw this EP there I decided to buy it even though it wasn’t on my wish-list, all the while hoping it would overcome the EP curse.

How It Stacks Up: I have three Clem Snide albums, but this is an EP and therefore a different animal. As it is my only EP by the band, it cannot stack up.

Ratings: 2 stars

Not long after I got through my second of many listens of “A Beautiful EP” I realized two things. First, that it is objectively a solid record by a band I enjoy. Second, that much of what constitutes an EP tends to annoy me.

EPs can be great, but they are often dodgy by their very nature. They usually have half or fewer the number of songs from an LP, but they’re rarely half the price. Those songs tend to take a few well-worn turns best left unexplored, and “A Beautiful EP” is no exception.

First off, EPs love their cover songs. Sometimes you can get some real gems in the process – things the band might not put on a full record because it doesn’t suit the vibe or theme, but can work on an EP. Ghost covering the Eurythmics “Missionary Man” or Soundgarden doing the Ohio Players’ “Fopp” are two great examples. Bonus points if the band later combines a couple EPs into an album you can buy as a full length (as Soundgarden did this on “Screaming Life/Fopp”).

Clem Snide goes for a cover of Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” which is…solid. It isn’t as good as the Ghost and Soundgarden songs I noted above, but I don’t like the original as much, so it had less to work with. Anyway, I liked it, and Clem Snide indie pop it up with solid success. Lead singer Eef Barzelay can’t hold a candle to Aguilera’s vocal gymnastics, but he doesn’t go for that, sticking to a punk adjacent approach that lacks depth, but retains enough edge to see it through.

The band also does a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror” which is, again, passable but not a “must have” by any stretch. I prefer the original, as the cover drags just a bit.

EPs also like to recycle old songs with very similar new versions. Again, “A Beautiful EP” has two of these. “Nick Drake Tape” from their 1998 debut and “All Green” from “Soft Spot” (released earlier the same year). Argh. Both songs are OK, but knowing they’re recycled from earlier records is irritating. Despite it being many years later, I felt the echo of irritation of hard core fans having to buy these songs twice just to get the two covers.

This leaves us with only a single song that is 100% new and original material – “Mike Kalinsky” at Track 3. This song, about a high school outcast who doesn’t “do sports”, or score with girls but later goes on to be a successful musician is fine as narrative arcs go. However, the switch in styles from the slow folk pop of the main tune into a – surprise! – jump to Kalinsky’s punk rock styling at the end wore thin after multiple listens (which with an 18-minute EP you are going to get plenty of).

For all this, there aren’t any terrible songs on the record, and absent Aguilera’s powerhouse vocals I realized that “Beautiful” is a much stronger song structurally than I had ever given it credit for as a pop ballad. “All Green” is a lovely pastoral tune that makes you think of lazy summer days and iced tea.

But at the end of the day, I don’t need a bunch of re-releases, live versions and covers. If I wanted that experience, I’d buy a boxed set. So I’m going to part company with this record and do what I should have done in the first place: wait for the LPs that are actually on my list to show up in the record store and buy those instead.

Best tracks: Beautiful, All Green

CD Odyssey Disc 1555: Clem Snide

It is the last day of April and I see I’ve only reviewed six albums this month, which is my lowest output in some time. I work a lot of late hours these days, and it does eat into my review time, but I am determined to sail on to Ithaca, so keep checking back and I’ll ensure I’ve got something up at least once a week, if not more.

Disc 1555 is…. Forever Just Beyond

Artist: Clem Snide

Year of Release: 2020

What’s up with the Cover? Dear God, what is leaning into the right of the frame? All babies are ugly, but this ugly baby is particularly ugly. It is even wearing an ugly sweater.

Not only is this cover terrible, it is printed on a cardboard sleeve so flimsy it might as well be a folded over cereal box. It is also so narrow you can’t print the name of the record on the spine (making it impossible to find on a CD shelf). I give this cover zero stars.

How I Came To Know It: I discovered this album (and the band) after reading a review on Pitchfork. I checked it out and loved what I heard, and so here we are.

How It Stacks Up: I now have two Clem Snide albums and I’m on the lookout for four more. Of the two I have, competition is close, but “Forever Just Beyond” comes in at #2.

Ratings: 4 stars

Over twenty years separates my last Clem Snide album (1999’s “Your Favourite Music”) and “Forever Just Beyond.”  There were times you could feel the distance, mostly in the latter’s smoother production, but the band has mostly preserved their sound: indie pop with a gentle flowing groove and thoughtful, often surprising lyrics.

Those lyrics on “Forever Just Beyond” do a fair of exploration of the nature of consciousness. You get the sense that these guys have a lot of late-night conversations about life, the universe, and everything. I found myself wishing I’d been invited over for some of those. I guess by listening to the record, I kind of was.

In true Clem Snide fashion, they start this conversation from the oddest of tangents on the opening track, “Roger Ebert”. The song opens with a light and lyric piano riff, before lead singer Eef Barzelay (yes, that’s his name) drops this odd gem on you:

“Did you know that these were Roger Ebert’s dying words?
‘It’s all an elaborate hoax. It’s all an elaborate hoax.’”

It seemed an unlikely thing to say, so I broke my common approach of considering a song without any biographical context and looked it up. Turns out, these were Roger Ebert’s dying words. Right at the end he was exploring some heady concepts of what it is to be. This appealed to my existential predilections and it was also a relief that it wasn’t some reference to any one of the many conspiracy theories polluting the Interwebs.

It's a lot to take in on a pop record, but you can expect that and more when you listen to “Forever Just Beyond”. The next track is “Don’t Bring No Ladder” expands on the exploration of consciousness, with the following provocative lyrics:

“We are a wave endlessly breaking
We are the ever-seeing eye
We've never left the place we're searching for
Don't bring no ladder when you die”

It is the kind of stuff that lets your mind wander into a challenging space, wrapped in a pleasant melody that reassures you that ‘hey, we’re just speculating – no need to be concerned.’ “Don’t Bring No Ladder” also features some lovely electric guitar, even with a bit of rock and roll reverb that fits in surprisingly well with the otherwise laid-back groove.

 As the album progresses, you realize that all this philosophizing is also deeply personal for Barzelay. “Easy” explores concepts of how to maintain a personal sense of honour in contexts where your knowledge is inherently limited. Or as he puts it, “We only see through keyholes/But maybe that’s all that our eyes can take.”

And later on he shares thoughts of suicide on the bravely titled “The Ballad of Eef Barzelay.” His journey back from that darkness represents not a reaffirmation in anything specific, but rather a surrender to the uncertainty inherent in the universe. Or as he artfully puts it:

“I took that trust fall backwards
And just ignored those howling sounds
And as I kept on falling I came to realize
I finally realized there was no ground”

“Forever Just Beyond” features some beautiful musical compositions, and the arrangement and production decisions are exactly what is needed: sparse overall, with flourishes of instrumentation to give each song depth and nuance.

However, if you are coming to this record expecting something pleasant hum along to while you make your morning coffee, then be aware you’re going to get more than you bargained for. These guys are here to take you to the wild and seldom explored places in your mind, and make you think.

Best tracks: Roger Ebert, Don’t Bring No Ladder, The Stuff of Us, Easy, The Ballad of Eef Barzelay, Some Ghost

CD Odyssey Disc 1532: Clem Snide

This next band is named after a character in the novels of William S. Burroughs. I can’t stand William S. Burroughs, but the band is great. So great I delayed this review while I gave the record a few extra listens.

Disc 1532 is….  Your Favorite Music

Artist: Clem Snide

Year of Release: 1999

What’s up with the Cover? These guys are in trouble in one of two ways.

If their tuxedos are rentals, they’re going to get billed for all that water damage. If they’re not rentals it means they own these tuxedos.

How I Came To Know It: I got into Clem Snide through their 2020 record, “Forever Just Beyond”. I didn’t dig into their back catalogue at the time, but I was meeting a friend at my local record store and doing a bit of shopping. Sheila doesn’t usually CD shop, but she was idly digging through the miscellaneous ‘C’ section while she waited for our friend and found this. I took it for a sign and bought it on spec.

How It Stacks Up: I have two Clem Snide albums. They were released more than twenty years apart, but both are amazing. Fittingly, I’ll put “Your Favorite Music” as..my favorite music. By them, at least.

Ratings: 4 stars

“Your Favorite Music” is a record that sneaks up on you. On my first listen I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. The warbling, sometimes flat vocals had me longing for more, the lyrics took unlikely tangents, and the tunes had a country drag that ambled in a way that left me feeling anxious about whether they’d get to their destination.

However, the more I listened the more the things I had thought were bugs ended up being features. This is a record full of introspection and uncertainty; themes best approached thoughtfully, and from a slow amble.

“Bread” is a good example. A single guitar moseys its way through a song with plenty of minor notes bouncing about. Vocalist Eef Barzelay won’t blow the studio doors off their hinges with power, but he sings with honesty and integrity, and the more you listen the more you appreciate his tone as well. Also, Eef Barzelay is a great name. Better than Clem Snide, at any rate.

The band mixes up the arrangements from song to song, so while the slow plaintive mosey is present for most of them, they have a subtle variation I appreciated more and more on every listen. The secret weapon is Jason Glasser. He plays cello, violin and keyboards (not at the same time of course). This adds texture and emotional nuance, splashing deep blue and indigo into the corners of the songs. The more I listened the more I appreciated the choices Glasser makes on not only how he plays, but how he chooses which paintbrush to use for each song.

The tunes are good for a wallow, but they have a core of hope and happiness in them that will leave you satisfied at the end. The title track is the best example, starting out with a downcast “your favorite music/it just makes you sad” but ending with:

“I can't teach you
To learn to love yourself
But here's a sad song
That I wrote for no one else”

It’s like a hopeful and reassuring hug, and a reminder a sad song can be a healing experience.

The album has one up tempo number as well. “I Love the Unknown” comes right in the middle of the record and serves as a perfectly timed palate cleanser. It is a song about carefree adventure, with Barzelay singing with an unlikely joyful head voice, and Glasser dropping timely chops on the cello that made you think of the swell of the orchestra in the grand finale of a classical piece.

Immediately after they’re back to their slow and considered approach. The album’s latter gem is “Loneliness Finds Her Own Way”. It features the snap of the snare drum common to this era of blue-eyed soul. This song is lyrically one of the record’s best, opening with:

“Loneliness finds her own way
Cause her skin is so soft
I'm cutting my teeth on her shoulders
And cracking my knuckles while holding her hand”

This is very early Clem Snide, and they wear their influences on their sleeve. I got strong hints of Uncle Tupelo and (unsurprisingly) a long finish of early Wilco. However, they don’t sound derivative, they just sound like they’re part of the same musical school. They’re peers, not pupils.

There are a dozen or so Clem Snide releases between this one and the only other one in my collection, but based on the two bookends of their discography, I am looking forward to exploring everything in between.

Best tracks: Your Favorite Music, Bread, I Love the Unknown, Loneliness Finds Her Own Way, Sweet Mother Russia, The Water Song