There's cultural product you enjoy and cultural product you admire; either will suffice under the right circumstances, although the ideal is for both to be wrapped up in one package. Here's a basic exemplary schema: J.K. Rowling (enjoy), Jacques Derrida (admire), Elmore Leonard (both). Star Wars Episode III (enjoy), My Dinner with Andre (admire), Kung Fu Hustle (both). The schema breaks down vis-á-vis television, which lacks the patience for the (admire) category, but holds up against orchestral indie rock: Explosions in the Sky (enjoy), A Northern Chorus (admire), Godspeed You! Black Emperor (both).
What makes the (admire) category worthwhile is that you can learn from or be challenged by it-- in other words, while fun is, well, fun, it's not the only sensation we seek from our artistic diversions. We also crave to be provoked and disturbed and psychically reoriented. Since there's not much that Bitter Hands Resign has to teach me, and since its dramatic maneuvers are too soothing and commonplace (if competently executed) to challenge any of my assumptions or sensibilities, I can only admire it in an abstract way.
But if it's a musical massage you're after, and more to the point, if you like the idea of Coldplay's Chris Martin singing for Explosions in the Sky, this third LP from Ontario sextet A Northern Chorus will be the object of your pleasure and esteem. Resonating with Pink Floyd's cold and swirling qualities, EITS's delicate textural layers, Godspeed's epic thrust and Sigur Rós's inexorable freeze, A Northern Chorus has turned out the record that Death Cab for Cutie might make after taking an online classical composition course and a near-fatal overdose of tranquilizer cocktails. The long, dramatic arcs of languid guitar, weepy cello, silky organs, and lugubrious percussion are overstated in a necessary way, but grandiosity works better musically than lyrically, and I'd have preferred this album without the breathy, direly grave falsettos.
I'm saying: When you're taking an ice bath, the last thing you need is someone reminding you how cold it is, and lines like "Angels are on their way out/ They'll lead us through the darkness to the right place" (as warbled over the gentle, trebly percolation of "Subjects & Matter") seem to overstate a case for hope in the face of modern dread that the music tacitly makes on its own, that's already been made by similar musics many times over. But like I said in a recent Album Leaf review, it's really about headspace-- if you're in the right one, this sad-sack skygaze epic will trickle dazzling colors across your firmament.
