****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
This is a massive album. Symphonic, romantic, and psychedelic, like Wagner on acid. I think that's been properly established by other reviewers at this point. It's all well and good, but what puts it among my all-time favorites is the way such grandiose music can be so personal and poignant.As a fan of great storytelling, I have a tendency to interpret albums as concept albums. For example, when I first bought The Wite Stripes' "White Blood Cells", I thought it was actually a lo-fi rock opera about childhood romance. "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space" is the same way for me.But how so? In a single sentence, here's what I think: the album is a concept album about a troubled romantic type (presumably the band's brain, Jason Pierce) who relies on drugs and alcohol to cope with unrequited love.Track by track, it works out almost perfectly. The first track begins withe the line "All I want in life's a little love to take the pain away/Gettin' strong today/One giant step each day". As it progresses, the song blooms into an overwhelming chorus of repeating lines layered and overlaping over and into each other, like expanding circles. "I will love you all the time/And I will love you 'till I die".It's all very sweet, but things soon start to go downhill with track 2, "Come Together", a rocker with saxophones that, amazingly, don't sound like crap. About halfway through the song, Jason sings bitterly, "Now Little J's a ***ked up boy who dulled the pain and killed the joy/Those tracks of time/Those tracks are mine/Little J is occupied." Rhythmicly, it sounds sort of like iambic pentameter (the heartbeat pattern that Shakespeare uses). It represents the start of the character's drug use.Then comes my personal favorite, track 3, "I Think I'm in Love". At about eight minutes in length "I Think I'm in Love" has two basic segments. The first one is musically euphoric, with lyrics describing the nearly divine bliss of a heroin high. Some people have criticized it for glorifying heroin use, but in the conext of the rest of the album, its image as an eventually destructive escape method becomes pretty clear. The second part of the song features the familiar theme of a the woozy optimisim of the beginning stages of falling in love. However, a pessimistic side comment follows every love-dumb line. When Jason confidently sings "I think my name is on your lips!", a second Jason immediately follows, singing "Probably complainin'...". It's actually pretty funny, and one of the more original metaphorical 'love as a drug' songs. The heroin dream represents Jason's sincere feelings of love while his doubtful side comments represent reality creeping in. The music, of course, is perfectly evocative and beautifulThe two songs that follow, "All My Thoughts "Stay With Me", smoothly witness the slide from infatuation (or perhaps obsession, depending on how cynical you are about love) into desperation. Then comes "Electricity", another song apparently about a drug high. It's the fastest and most traditionally 'rock and roll' song on the album."Home of the Brave" is one of the more unusual songs on the album. Its music sounds like a melodic squal of noise, which reminds me of my beloved Shoegazers My Bloody Valentine and Ride. "Home"'s squall, however, acts more as a background for Jason's extremely vulnerable singing. Some of the best lines on the album are in this sad come-down song. "Sometimes have my breakfast right off of a mirror/And sometimes I have it right out of a bottle" . . . "I don't even miss you/but that's 'cos I'm ***ked up/I'm sure when it wears off that I will be hurting.""Home of the Brave" segues directly into "The Individual". This is the song that some of the more critical reviews have attacked. It's understandable, considering that it's not so much a song as it is about 5 minutes of noise. I personally don't mind it, and I see it as a symbol of the fuzzed out, confused nature of J's drug-addled brain.By track nine, "Broken Heart", the man is back in action, packing more despair into the song than all the songs that precede it combined. I see this as 'the sober song'. His delusions gone, J sings the brutal truths of his situation: "And I'm wasted all the time/I gotta drink you right off of my mind/I've been told that this will heal given time/But I have a broken heart/And I'm crying all the time/I have to keep it covered up with a smile/And I keep on moving on for a while/But I have a broken heart". Musicically speaking, the song is a flat-out ballad complete with strings and a French horn. No wonder it was used as a single.Track 10, "No God Only Religion", is another instrumental puzzler, and I admit that I'm a bit puzzled about what it's supposed to mean, if it means anything to begin with. It's noisy, but still more accessible than "The Individual", and has a weird symphonic musical phrase that repeats, almost like a march. If I had to compare it to another piece of music, it'd be Nine Inch Nails' "Pilgrimage" instrumental from "The Fragile".Track 11, "Cool Waves" sounds like a closing track with a big ol' gospel choir singing along as J seems to come to terms with his loss, singing sadly "Baby if you gotta leave, you gotta leave." It reminds me of "Goodnight", the song that ends The Beatles' White Album.. . . But it's not the closing track. Track 12, "Cop Shoot Cop...", is a menacing yet reserved 17 minute jam with long waves of heavy feedback. Kinda cool, but very out of place on such a personal album. It's as if "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space" was recorded as a double vinyl album, but wasn't long enough to have a fourth side, so "Cop Shoot Cop" was added as an afterthought.
