Minus Story
The Captain is Dead, Let The Drum Corpse Dance
JAG073
Released: April 6, 2004
FORMATS:
CD
Minus Story craft melodies and harmonies that dig truly and deeply under your skin, displacing all those lead-filled chiggers of life that keep you low and on the outside. Although Minus Story have put out two records already, one of them self-released, you don’t know this band yet. But you will soon. Trust us on this one. Minus Story are Jordan Geiger, Nick Christus, Brian Phillips and Andy Byers. Their mystical third full-length (and first for Jagjaguwar), The Captain is Dead, Let The Drum Corpse Dance, is fuzzy and full of sunshine but also full of dark clouds and cold rain and is wistful and billowing, much like the music of The Zombies, Smile-era Beach Boys, Circulatory System and Neutral Milk Hotel. It also embraces those indefinable qualities found on records like Mt. Eerie by Microphones or Fragile by Yes. It is experimental pop, through and through, with all the attendant haunted edges, including a storyline about some young boy who rallies together an army of children, some black cloud that eats birds, and some girl who comes back as a ghost in a marching band. Unerringly, Minus Story embrace their self-proclaimed “Wall of Crap” sound — resembling a naively recorded pop symphony — throughout The Captain is Dead, Let The Drum Corpse Dance. They recorded the songs themselves without any preconceived recording “techniques” in mind. Much like a fellow once known as Prince did on Purple Rain. And their utter lack of concern for doing things “correctly” is why this record is so utterly beguiling — a masterpiece that will creep into your consciousness and lay anchor for some time.
