Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You - Kill Rock Stars

Review by: Dave Morgan

There's always been something about double albums that appealed to me. There is something grand and ambitious about them. They are sprawling soundscapes that seem to go on endlessly. This endlessness, however, is the deciding factor as to whether they should have stopped eight songs ago. The best double albums like The Rolling Stones' Exile in Mainstreet and Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation go on and on until your eyes roll back in ecstasy. The worst (The Clash's Sandanista) make you hate the time (not mention money) you invested in them. They seem to go nowhere and take their time doing it. In other words, its a close balancing act between a good double albums and a bad one. The things that can make them wonderful are the same that can destroy them.

Unwound's Leaves Turn Inside You is an almost great double album. Its been almost four years since we last heard from Tumwater, Washington's finest band on the disappointing Challenge for a Civilized Society. That record fell terribly flat. It was like Unwound was mimicking themselves. Before that, though, they had made an amazing string of records. From the noisy and almost out of control Unwound and Fake Train to the more controlled cacophony of New Plastic Ideas and The Future of What. Repetition was a slight step back but a good record none the less.

Leaves Turn Inside You brings them back to the top of their game. Much has been made about the "new" Unwound sound but really only some of the outward things have changed. After a year in their recently built home studio, Justin Trosper's dissonant guitar is still there just without much of the distortion. Very Rumsey is still one of rock's great bass players (is it any wonder that the best Blonde Redhead record is the one that he plays bass on?). Sara Lund has such a great and distinct drumming style and it is very much in evidence here. Besides the songwriting being brought back up to par, the biggest change here is in the vocals. Trosper used to veer back and forth from barking words out to a kind of speak-sing. He has changed his style to actually singing. There are harmonies here. Its really a great leap forward for this band. Though they've grown, at the same time this also reminds one of an expanded one New Plastic Ideas. There is also a heaping dose of keyboards and mellotron with original drummer (and Trosper's partner in noisy experimental band The Replikants) Brandt Sandeno lending a hand.

Back to the double album thing. Like the best double albums, its hard to pick out individual songs. Though they are there, this record works best as a whole. Its starts of with the almost majestic "We Invent You." Slightly dissonant keyboard notes are held out for over two minutes before the song finally kicks in with layered vocals singing "saaaaaaave your graaaaace..." Its quite an introduction. From there the songs proceed without a whole lot of variation. Some rock more. Some are more spacey. Vern evens takes a turn at the mic on "December." Really, there's just too much here to go beyond describing the basic sounds. To start describing individually each of the 14 songs here would be to get buried in adjectives.

So this is the "new" Unwound sound? I like it. Its a very natural evolution of a band that was stuck in a rut. They seem to have realized that and taken a step back to reevaluate their music. More bands should do that. Like their Sonic Youth loving brethren, Blonde Redhead, they figured out that more of the same isn't good and decided to change course.

Read where Kill Rock Stars got their name from here.