Envy of None

Go. Now. Make this a part of your life.

Not being much of a synth-pop guy, when I listen to this I think of some of the Smashing Pumpkins stuff that Flood produced, or maybe some of the post-Actung Baby electronic stuff U2 did. Wait… wasn’t that Flood too? Or was that Brian Eno? I don’t know. I heard an interview with Andy Curran where he said it sounds like Depeche Mode or The Cure. That works too.

So there I am, listening for the first time and really enjoying it purely on a holy-shit-this-hook-is-infectious level. I wasn’t hearing any stand out guitar parts, but I knew that was coming. Alex Lifeson (as well as everyone else involved in the album) has made a big deal out of the fact that he’s playing the guitar without ever sounding like a guitar. He’s basically a guitar synth player rather than just a guitar player. Then you get to Spy House, track five, and there’s a stretch of about four bars where he just shreds like the Guitar God he is, and then it’s back to synthy stuff.

I imagine Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew sitting in a room together listening. They both nod their head in approval. Then they look at each other and nod their heads in agreement. Then they look over at Alex Lifeson and nod in solidarity. Yeah. I’m 100% sure that exact thing happened.

No go and listen to it.