Perspective
Listening to Yours Truly, Angry Mob, the second effort by Kaiser Chiefs, I'm yet again struck by my enjoyment for an album that I had previously written off. When I purchased ...Angry Mob back in the early part of 2007, I was underwhelmed at best, but hearing it again, having cleansed all memory of it in the ensuing months, it's a solid, mature album, in some ways much better than their debut. Where Employment has more catchy, cheeky hits, ...Angry Mob, possibly anticipating in that title the inevitable backlash, cuts the sass in favor of stronger songwriting. And while I lament the absence of some of the catchier and edgier aspects of the debut, the newer album will likely have more staying power, now that I've given it a fair shake.
As with Blackalicious's The Craft, I'm finding that I now disagree wholeheartedly with my first impressions of an album. Just a few weeks ago I decided to give the latest 31 Knots opus, The Days and Nights of Everything Anywhere and was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually like it. While it's still nowhere near the level of perfection of their previous record, Talk Like Blood, it has plenty to offer that for whatever reason fell on deaf ears with my initial listens. I must be unconsciously building expectations for new albums based on my previous experiences with the bands, falling into the all-too-common trap of not approaching each album as its own work, on its own terms. Musicians, for the most part, grow and change, their music along with them, AC/DC being the exception that proves the rule. While that doesn't mean I should give a pass to any musician that tries something different (DJ Shadow - Jesus H., man, seriously), I do need to take a moment and keep my knee from jerking so quickly when I hear something new from an established artist. So far, giving myself some months of palette cleansing and revisiting the music has worked out fairly well for me, a lesson I should keep in mind in the future.
