Chin Up Chin Up Albums (3)
'This Harness Can't Ride Anything'
Release Date 9/26/2006
Tracks 10
Label Mock & Roll
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Although the comparatively straightforward guitar pop of the Chills, the Clean and the Bats is what broke through to the biggest American college radio audience, a trawl through the back catalog of the great New Zealand indie Flying Nun Records reveals a ton of smaller bands working in considerably different musical circumstances. The comparison comes up because the second album by American indie rockers Chin Up Chin Up shares most of its musical DNA with folks like the Tall Dwarfs, Look Blue Go Purple and the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience, even if these Chicago-based youngsters have probably never heard of those groups. A considerably more pop-oriented album than the band's quirky debut, This Harness Can't Ride Anything has a thin, trebly sound that emphasizes the dry, scratchy guitars and rickety, Moe Tucker-style drums underneath Jeremy Bolen's occasionally yelpy vocals, but all of those potentially off-putting elements are put in service of a newfound interest in traditional pop-song structures. This mixture of clattering, ramshackle arrangements and smartly put-together tunes, best heard on the nervy, breathless jangle of "Water Planes In Snow" (a terrific song that -- no kidding -- recalls the early days of the Go-Betweens) and the surging Motorik drone of "Islands Sink," is an intriguing new direction for a band that previously seemed more interested in artsy, diffident post-rock. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
'We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers'
Release Date 10/25/2004
Tracks 10
Label Flameshovel
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Rather like the suddenly famous Modest Mouse and the unfortunately less celebrated Minus the Bear, Chin Up Chin Up are the friendly face of the subgenre most commonly dubbed post-rock: the songs on We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers are rife with unexpected dynamic shifts and tricky instrumental parts, but there's something unfailingly pleasant about these undemanding little pop songs. Part of it is the Chicago-based band's melodic strengths; songs like "Collide the Tide" (a holdover from 2003's self-titled debut EP) blend the vocals of guitarists Jeremy Bolen and Nathan Snydacker in a complex but enticing blend, and the rhythmic trickiness and unexpected left turns in the arrangements never undermine the songs' inherent catchiness. The title track and "Virginia Don't Drown" are far catchier than songs with such unrepentantly pretentious titles deserve, and it's a rare band that can turn a song called "Get Me Off This Fucking Island" into a wah-wah-enhanced blending of Eno-vintage Talking Heads and (no kidding) Parklife-era Blur. Recorded after a band tragedy (the group's original bassist, Chris Saathoff, was killed in a hit-and-run accident outside a Chicago club on Valentines Day 2004; the elegiac closer "All My Hammocks Are Dying" pointedly lacks a bassline in tribute), We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers is surprisingly focused and optimistic, and a non-stop delight. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
