Apples In Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder
By Nate • Dec 6th, 2007 • Category: Music
It had been almost five full years since the last proper Apples In Stereo album when I was up late one night in December of last year, watching The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. Stephen was conducting a guitar solo competition between himself and the lead guitarist for The Decemberists. The back story is readily available, if you’re interested, but I’m not going to get into it here. The important thing about the show that night was that, the opening act was musician Robert Schneider, who performed the playfully irreverent(and completely objective) “Stephen, Stephen.”
I was shocked.
Other people, important, on-TV kind of people knew and loved Schneider enough to have him on their show five years after his band, The Apples In Stereo had released their last album?! What the hell?
Not too much later, I heard that they were, in fact, back together, with a slightly different line-up and that a new album was imminent. Joy! I was a huge fan of their last two records, Discovery of a World Inside the Moone and Velocity of Sound, which were still in my heavy music rotation. Go check them out, they’re that good.
Two months after the impromptu appearance on the Colbert Report, Schneider’s Apples In Stereo released New Magnetic Wonder. It was everything I had been waiting for.
The psychedelic production, the starry-eyed lyrics, the boundless enthusiasm were all still there. How someone can’t listen to a song like “Energy,” with lyrics like “the world is made of energy and there’s a lot inside of you and a lot inside of me” and not have their mood turned around is beyond me. But that’s not all, the entire album is full of gems, from “Seven Stars” to the blatant enthusiasm of “Sun Is Out” and “Can You Feel It?” this is an entire record made to put you in a good, toe-tapping mood.
In fact, just about the only bad thing about this album is the cover art, which, let’s face it, is pretty damned ugly. I like to think that it’s a defense mechanism, put there to guard against those people who wouldn’t truly appreciate it.
Oh, and one last thing, they also have some great music videos. You can’t tell me that this doesn’t look fun as hell…
Here’s the video of Robert’s performance on The Colbert Report…
Previous Posts in my Top Ten Countdown, 2007
Nate is pretty sure Mark Twain said it best, "Humor is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations, and resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place."
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