The quick-&-dirty: The New Year’s new self-titled album is pretty fucking great. An indie supergroup consisting of former members of Bedhead, the Brothers Kadane and Indie stalwart Chris Brokaw (Thurston Moore’s New Wave Bandits, Lemonheads, Codeine etc.), The New Year make slowcore sound great even at half-speed. Playing live at Bottom of the Hill, they took it up a level from the many great songs in their repetoire past and present. Chinese Handcuffs, with its twin drum assault, was particularly great, as was Reconstruction. Actually the whole second half of the set slayed. Gasoline is a great old New Year song which they killed as they did on The Company I Can Get, which is catchy as hell with its chorus of “God knows I wouldn’t/I need all the company I can get/Even that redneck in the Red Corvette.” Whatever song they close with was completely over the top too. With any luck, The New Year will be around in indie and rock circles for a long, long time to come---and maybe they'll get the just desserts they deserve as well.
Gasoline
The pattern on this rug tells a story
It's gory chaos but ordered and hoary
And I hate it but strangely respect it like Gasoline
Now I'm lying in the fetal position
I know I never should have been a musician
When I knew my ears would lose their audition
Gasoline
I like the way you smell
Gasoline
I never knew I knew you so well
We always know just what to do
Until the future comes
Now look what we've been through
Only cowards seek refuge in a second language
I should have learned how to speak my native one
I was afraid I wouldn't know how to use my tongue
Gasoline
You're more than a finished product
Running down the aqueduct
What I should do and what I do are like brothers
They're driven by so much more than they're needed
That they're blinded they can't see they're both
driven by
Gasoline leaking through an empty tank
Gasoline
The future's never what I think
I thought we knew what we were doing
But we've considered the unthinkable
-Matt Kadane
http://www.thenewyear.net/
