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Needs a Band is, when all is said and done, a pity. I've listened to it pretty much nonstop since I found it in my mail pile after a trip abroad earlier this week, trying to digest its twists and turns and little unpredictabilities.
There are off-kilter piano ballads ("Slow Decline"), a Sebadoh cover ("Mr. Genius Eyes"), abrasive Ministry-esque aggro ("You Can't Deny Me"), and, of course, a good old-fashioned country tearjerker ("Architect of Years"). Usually, bands that try this everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink approach are just crappily trying to figure out what they're good at, but the Disband doesn't have that problem: it turns out that they're good at everything. This is a band I would have come over and fix my television or teach my offspring Latin. They're that smart and that skilled.
The Disband, though, aren't even a band. They're a duo composed of Boston fellows Michael Feiler and Nick Parker, occasionally supported by some of their friends. From what I can figure out, this is mostly (if not totally) a home recording. A lot of the tracks sound like demos, but then a lot of them sound like fully-realized and polished pieces. Not that it makes much of a difference--the songs are so strong that they'd probably sounds pretty good recorded on an Edison Talking Machine.
Needs a Band is one of those albums that, like Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and Tricky's Maxinquaye that create a whole logic of their own. That's not to say that the Disband sounds anything at all like NMH or Tricky, or even a combination of the two. But get more than one or two tracks into it and it will take over your world for just under an hour. The music really doesn't sound more than superficially like anything else I've ever heard before, but it all makes sense together.
I mentioned in the beginning of this review that Needs a Band is a pity. It's not that the music isn't great, or that it's so raw and different, that sucks. It's the fact that it is entirely possible that I am the only person in the world listening to this album at this very moment and that the Disband won't get the exposure they deserve.
If you want to get in touch with the Disband and try to weasel a copy of Needs a Band for yourself, email them at thedisband@comcast.net.