Living With The Living

On Living with the Living, Ted Leo and his Pharmacists stretch out just enough to keep it interesting without endangering the classic sound developed on Shake the Sheets, Hearts of Oak, and Tyranny of Distance. Sure, some of the experimentation doesn't really work: the dub song is forgettable, and the extended ending of Lost Brigade is a tad overlong and boring. But neither of these quibbles diminishes the fact that Living with the Living is an expertly crafted collection of intelligent, politically conscious rock'n'roll songs, well worth listening to.

"`Cause we're not trying to change when you tell me that I change

and when I try not to change, well then you tell me that I don't change

And there's not much I can change about that, sir"

- Some Beginner's Mind, Ted Leo & The Pharmacists

Ted Leo makes music to set your life to. While other bands are content with introspective navel gazing, and still a few others deal strictly with the political, Ted Leo finds a comfortable medium between the public and private, and, ultimately, he shows us there's not a whole lot of difference between the two. Ted Leo attempts to wrap his arms around the immensity of our world. Leo's success is credited to his ability to make his politics seem about the individual. For example, on The High Party he lets it slip that 9/11 is his birthday while ruminating on the politics of propaganda, and on Living with the Living the most strident anti-war song, Bomb.Repeat.Bomb, is told through the eyes of a bomber pilot. His politics sound less like sleep deprived manifesto than the ruminations of someone walking around the city without a destination.

On their fifth LP Ted Leo and those irascible Pharmacists construct a musical diorama of all the styles that have informed their sound. While in his previous albums these influences could be heard through parts of his songs, a bass line here or a lyric there, on Living with the Living, Leo has adopted these styles whole instead of piecemeal. The album feels like he's making a mix tape of all his favorite styles but with his own music. Living with the Living runs through hardcore (Bomb.Repeat.Bomb.), Irish folk (Bottle of Buckie), reggae (Unwanted Things), and new wave (La Costa Brava) just to name a few. There are also genres you wouldn't necessarily associate with Ted Leo, like funk (Lost Brigade) and R.E.M. style jangle pop (Colleen).

I think the reasons behind these genre specific congs can be found in Some Beginner's Mind. The aforementioned quote shows the paradox of this album: Leo's sound is evolving by devolving his songs to their genre origins. It makes a kind of sense. I read somewhere that this song is referencing the Zen concept of shoshin, or "beginner's mind." I ran across this little quote by Shunryu Suzuki: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few." By rediscovering the sounds that first made him excited about music in the first place, Ted Leo is actually uncovering multiple ways of songwriting.

The strength of Leo's political writing doesn't end with his ability to make the political personal. The political songs on Living also make great use of analogy to attack the current war in the Middle East. Nowhere does Leo mention the second Gulf War. However, he has called Bomb.Repeat.Bomb. a song about America's involvement in Guatemala, Annunciation Day/Born on Christmas Day references the Falkland War, and C.I.A. takes on our overly secretive institution. At the same time, the shadow of our current war can be felt throughout the album. Ted Leo is implicitly drawing attention to the fact our current war is not a finite problem, but rather a part of our systematic dealings with the rest of the world. His call for change is as far reaching as it is individualistic. Once again, Leo manages to wrestle a complex view of our world through seemingly disparate dichotomies.

I'm sure you've noticed that I haven't even touched upon whether or not the album is any good. Ted Leo is such a natural songwriter that his albums are always good, but more than that, Ted Leo's work has become such a part of my life I'm less interested in the mostly boring question of quality, than I am interested in how his craft is evolving. Judging by Living with the Living I'm sure I'll be returning to Leo's latest album, whatever that album may be at the time, until he no longer puts music to disc.

If you've been a fan of the Ted Leo and the R/x for a while, then you should know what to expect from this album: a remarkably consistent collection of very good power pop and rock songs with two or three standout tracks that will become instant favorites.

If you're not familiar with Ted Leo, here's the quick synopsis: clever lyrics and musical experimentation reminiscent of Elvis Costello, Billy Bragg, or the Clash mixed with the pop hooks and guitar licks you'd associate with Big Star, Thin Lizzy, or the Pixies.

As for the album: it's everything you can reasonably ask for from an album. Leo is one of the few performers in the indie world who's still making the unpretentious guitar rock that defined the early nineties underground scene. The most negative comments I've heard about Leo fall into two categories: either he's not original enough, or he never changes his formula. Both comments are true--Leo owes a lot to the great songwriters who preceded him. And though his influences are varied (albums often have rock albums, pop songs, and songs influenced by folk, reggae, and punk), it's true that his albums tend to be similar in style and structure and there's no real attempt to make a grand, artistic statement.

But it's really hard to criticize a guy for knowing his strengths and sticking too them. There aren't many lyricists today who can turn a better phrase, and nobody seems to write rock anthems anymore. This albums is filled with great tracks. Ranking it against his earlier albums, it's probably a bit beneath the level of "The Tyranny of Distance" and "Hearts of Oak," but it compares favorable to "Shake The Sheets." The album has a decent amount of experimentation and several laid back songs, so it's probably closest to "The Tyranny of Distance" in terms of structure.

If you want a good feel for the album check out "The Song of Cain," one of the albums best rockers, "La Costa Brava," a good pop song, and "Bomb. Repeat. Bomb," a more experimental track with an abrasive, DC-punk sound.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 10 reviews  4.5 out of 5 stars