MewithoutYou has always numbered among those bands whose sound is an “acquired taste”. From the start, there has never been a shred of pop-informed accessibility to their work.

Remember back in 2002 when [A->B] Life came out? Remember the first time you heard vocalist Aaron Weiss’ bizarre mix of talking and shouting? Remember being sucked in by the energy of it all – the broken heart of the protagonist, the churn and ferocity of the music to match?

Remember 2004, when Catch For Us The Foxes came out? Remember the intricate bass lines and the swirling crescendos of the guitars? Remember hearing Aaron talk quietly and, in his fumbling but endearing way, sing?

Remember how well all the new instrumentation introduced on 2006′s Brother, Sister seemed to fit? Remember how it added a lot to the depth and variety of their sound?

Remember falling in love with mewithoutYou?

If you’re like me, there are two key things that made it happen.

First, excellent musicianship. I know I’m not the only one who wept on the inside when Dan Pishock left after Catch For Us The Foxes – taking his ridiculously complicated and beautiful bass work with him. I know I’m not the only one who can’t help but dance or at least make spastic body movements when the opening peals of “January 1979″ rise up, carrying with them a wash of joy.

Second, Aaron Weiss. Don’t his lyrics have a way of shining light on such difficult things? Don’t his words get stuck in your head such that you find yourself using them as profound poetic injections in the middle of conversations about God, theology, and life in general? Doesn’t his delivery make you grin?

MewithoutYou’s strengths have always been the music and the man in front – and they have been such great strengths that those who enjoy them might even consider them to be superpowers. Such is the draw that mewithoutYou has upon their fanbase – faithful, passionate, and intensely proud of the intimate and meaningful work that ‘their’ band has given them.

I’m one of them. I first heard the band shortly after the release of their debut, and was happily carried along through second and third releases. Each one has been unique, yet all bear threads of similarity – music and man. I was sucked in first by the lyrics. Long before I grew to love and enjoy Aaron’s unique and, for most people, unlistenable delivery… it was his words that caught me. Consistently insightful, consistently grappling with the difficult yet most important things of life – meaning, existence, God, pain, relationships, and most of all the complicated realities of following Jesus in our present world. The grooves and pulses of the music didn’t hurt, either.

As you know, mewithoutYou has a new album and it comes out very soon. It is called it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright, and for many, just like me, the album’s title will summarize their first response upon hearing it. After some thought, I have a feeling that this kind of initial response actually provides a good framework for understanding this new album, as well as the many differences (and occasional similarities) it has with everything the band has done before.

So, without further ado:

It’s All Crazy!
When you start up this new album, and the opening carnival-organ notes of “every thought a Thought of You” hit your ears, it should be apparent very quickly that musically, this isn’t the mewithoutYou you’ve become accustomed to. What’s incredible is that this first track is about the closest to their “old sound” that you’ll find here. A couple of lines in, the band’s trademark guitars make their entrance (and, in many ways, take their leave – more on that in a second).

Behind the producer’s desk is none other than Dan Smith, who you might be familiar with from his work with Sufjan Stevens as well as heading up Danielson and all of its variants (Tri-Danielson, Danielson Family, Danielson Famile, etc). His fingerprints are all over the sound that mewithoutYou has adopted here – high falsetto background vocals make numerous appearances, not to mention generous and sprawling instrumentation from such varied sources as tubas, violins, xylophones, squeaky hinges, trumpets, pianos, banjos, and ultimately an entire orchestra. The trademark guitars still bring the heavy from time to time, but such occasions are few and far between – typically only at the climax of certain songs. If they’re present otherwise, they are mixed low and the other instruments take center stage. That said, there’s a lot more acoustic guitar (and bass) than electric, and really, that’s the craziest thing about this new album. Musically, this is really much more of a folk record than the post-hardcore or “artcore” we’re used to hearing from these guys.

Think about the coloured Spider vignettes on Brother, Sister and imagine them expanded to album-length, surrounded with lush accompaniment, and just generally tweaked in all manners of interesting, perhaps even “crazy” ways. That’s really what’s ‘crazy’ about it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright - it represents a huge shift in sound. To think that the direction taken on this new project was hinted at most clearly by the brief and incidental “arachnid interludes” of the preceding album makes it all the more perplexing.

It’s All False!
This album will probably be controversial, but you could have said that about any of their records – remember “Seven Sisters”, when Aaron said “Oh my God – I want to shoot myself just thinking about it!” and followed that up with “You think I don’t mean what I say? Well I mean every word I say!”. It’s not as though mewithoutYou have shied away from tense subject matter before – thoughts of suicide being the most easily recognizable.

The reason this album might be controversial is handily summarized by the title of the last song on the record: “Allah, Allah, Allah.” It’s the content rooted in faith and theology that will be most upsetting and divisive for both long-time fans and new listeners. Sometimes, it will be in a very good way – for instance Aaron’s proclamation on “a Stick, a Carrot and String” of Jesus as “our Lord”, come to replace the sacrificial system with his willing and obedient sacrifice on the Cross. Other times, as in the above example of “Allah…”, the knee-jerk reaction will likely be negative or at least confused. Let’s examine this.

Now, particularly in the West, we associate the word “Allah” with the specific god of Islam. Generally, the result of combining a song title such as “Allah, Allah, Allah” with our Islam-specific association is that we might conclude that mewithoutYou has converted to Islam. Listening through the song likely wouldn’t do much to assuage those fears, either. The problem lies in the association. The word “Allah” is merely the word for “God” in the language of Arabic. Aaron and his brother Michael (who plays guitar for the band) grew up with one of the most interesting religious heritages one might conceive of. They grew up with Sufi parents, their father a convert from Judaism and their mother from Episcopalianism. Sufism, for lack of a more concise description, is like mystical Islam – they believe, contrary to traditional Islamic teaching, that God is personal and personable rather than lofty and removed. For this, and other reasons, Sufism is about as close as any form of Islam gets to many of the most important distinctives of Christianity. It’s not the Truth, but it has elements of truth in it – many of which have inspired Aaron from the very beginning. None of this is a secret to fans of the band, who have likely already spent some time in the past investigating the Sufi poets and writers that Aaron derives much of his inspiration from. That said, this kind of far-from-normal background behind the lyrics creates an interesting and complicated set of juxtapositions for the listener. Begun on their sophomore effort, Aaron continues his pattern of utilizing Arabic primarily for purposes of praise (think back to “My Exit, Unfair”). With these things in mind, I would suggest that his use of “Allah” on the final track is simply that – just using another ‘name’ for God. It’s akin to calling Jesus “Yeshua” or “Haysoos” or perhaps the Arabic “Isa” – which, incidentally, Aaron has already done on Brother, Sister’s “The Dryness and the Rain”.

More than ever before, Aaron draws from his Sufi roots on this album – less from his usual source (the poet Rumi), and more from the “shiek” Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, who seems to be big on writing children’s stories – some of which Aaron retells. With all of this in mind, there’s a lot on the record that might cause some to cry “False!” reactively. However, I am certain that repeated listens (and a good, thorough time checking out the lyrics) will reveal that Aaron has delved into these Sufi proverbs and stories and dug up a lot of actual truth. The numerous places where Sufism parallels Christianity seem to be a treasure trove for interesting, thought-provoking content. Resist the initial urge to call it all “False”.

It’s All a Dream!
Aaron isn’t shouting! At all! Well, he might for a brief second at the beginning of “Bullet To Binary (Pt. 2)”, but that may have more to do with paying homage to the original song than with any desire to revisit old territory.

Actually, “breaking new ground” might be the best way to describe the lyrical content of the record… “storytelling” also comes to mind. There is, after all, a truckload of stories on this record – fables and tales and parables, as it were. They range from the apparently light-hearted (“the Fox, the Crow, and the Cookie”) to the biblically-inspired (“the Angel of Death came to David’s room”), to simple and elegant spiritual metaphor (“the King Beetle on a Coconut Estate”), to what can only be described as a Christmas song (“a Stick, a Carrot and String”). The cast is equally as varied, from animals and bugs, to baked goods and the ingredients needed to make them, to vegetables and plants. I’m reminded of Brother, Sister‘s “O Porcupine”, which reminded us that “all creation groans… listen to it!”. This record feels like a response to that admonition. In many ways, these stories could very well be called ‘dreams’. Each one serves to share a moral or a collection of thoughts, touching on subjects like mortality, the mystery of God, and the fleeting and ultimately empty fancies of our sexual appetites. The aforementioned ‘Christmas song’ (“a Stick, a Carrot and String”) is perhaps the best example of the approach Aaron has taken this time around. Shifting the focus from one stanza to another, the story of Christ’s birth and sacrifice are told through the animals that feature in those accounts (ie. the sacrificial lambs, the manger’s horse, the donkey Christ rode into Jerusalem, and of course the titular Snake – our Enemy). The song is powerful, despite its loose pacing and the warbles of the accordion that permeate it. Ultimately, it captures some of the incredible wonder induced by considering Jesus’ willing and obedient sacrifice on the cross. So, in that sense, this is a record full of ‘dreams and visions’ in the form of parables and fables and stories – believe me when I say that the lessons therein are helpful and worthwhile.

It’s Alright.
In the pair of months I’ve had to preview this album, I’ve gone back and forth on myself many times as to whether or not I enjoyed this new direction taken by mewithoutYou. After much reflection, primarily on what I’ve written about above, I trust you can understand that despite the “craziness”, the “falsehood”, and the “dreams”, this record is alright. MewithoutYou has taken some pretty massive steps away from their “sound” (many of them steps towards the folky, experimental sound of guys like Sufjan Stevens, Danielson, and the Psalters). Further, a new and less Aaron-centered lyrical direction and much more listener-friendly vocal style has opened the content up to a much wider audience. As much as I might want to play the snob and say it’s “not as good as old mewithoutYou”… I’m not convinced. For the first time ever, my wife could stand listening for more than 10 seconds. Call me crazy, but in my books that counts for something. MewithoutYou has chosen not to keep making Catch For Us The Foxes, and I believe they’re all the better for it.

So, it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright is crazy, false, dreamy, and ultimately… it’s quite alright in spite of these massive changes. Lyrically, it’s more sedate and thoughtful. Musically, it’s restrained in tone yet expansively layered. This is a worthy addition to the mewithoutYou canon, an unconventional but very enjoyable collection of songs that will alienate many long-time fans, but will create many more new ones.

Remember falling in love with mewithoutYou? I do. It just happened to me all over again.

4.5 Cookies out of 5

For More Info: toothandnail.com | mewithoutyou.com

Standout Tracks: every thought a Thought Of You; the Fox, the Crow, and the Cookie; a Stick, a Carrot and String; the King Beetle on a Coconut Estate; Allah, Allah, Allah.

Jerry Bolton – for The Phantom Tollbooth.
May 15th, 2009

Some lyrics from the fourth and soon-coming mewithoutYou record have surfaced. Here’s one song, which I’ve already taken a shining to. Note that they’re rough because they’re leaked and based on someone’s transcription (which means there’s definitely been some mis-heard words).

“a Stick, a Carrot & String” by mewithoutYou

The Horse’s hay beneath his head
Our Lord was born to a manger bed
Then all whose wells run dry,
Could drink of His supply

To keep him warm, the Sheep drew near,
So grateful for his coming here:
You come… with verses of grace,
Come to take my place?

The Donkey whispered in his ear:
Child, in thirty-some-odd years,
You’ll ride someone who looks like me (untriumphantly)

While the Cardinals warbled a joyful song:
He’ll make right what man made wrong!
Bringing low the hills that the valley might be filled!
Then, Child
Asked the Birds,
Well, aren’t they lovely words we sing?

The tiny Baby lay there
Without saying anything.

At a distance stood a mangy Goat
With crooked teeth and a masked coat,
Weary eyes and worn, chipped & twisted horns
Thinking:
Maybe I’ll make friends some day
With the Cows in the pews and the Rambouillets
But for now I’ll keep away -
I’ve got nothing smart to say

…but there’s a sign on the barn in the Cabbagetown:

WHEN THE RAIN PICKS UP
AND THE SUN GOES DOWN,
SINNER, COME INSIDE!
WITH NO MONEY, COME AND BUY
NO CLEVER TALK NOR GIFT TO BRING
REQUIRES OUR LOWLY, LOVELY KING
COME, ALL EMPTY-HANDED
YOU DON’T NEED ANYTHING ELSE

The night was cool and clear as glass
With a sneaking Snake in the garden grass
Deep cried out to Deep,
The Disciples, fast asleep
The snake peeked up when he heard You ask:

If You’re willing that this cup might pass
I could find my way back home,
Maybe have a family all my own… but
Does not the Father guide the Son?
Not my will but Yours be done!
What else here to do?
What else here but You?

And the Snake who’d held the world,
A stick, a carrot and a string
Was crushed beneath the Foot of
Your not wanting
Anything

On my shortlist of “BANDS SO AWESOME THAT THOSE WHO DO NOT LOVE THEM MUST CERTAINLY HAVE ROTTEN TASTE IN MUSIC” is a little band out of Philly by the name of mewithoutYou. I love them dearly – between the delicious bass-driven melodies, the satisfyingly crunchy electrics, the well-versed poetry, and the sparse and glistening soundscape… I love them a great lot.

…and as I read on Buzzgrinder not but a day or two ago, they have a new record coming out that everyone and their kid brother should buy. It is entitled:

it’s all crazy ! it’s all false ! it’s all a dream ! it’s alright

…and it is due out later this spring. Oh joy. Oh the joys.

Love.

I’m not the boy that I once was, but I’m not the man I’ll be…
…and I’ve been waiting now for six years on, and I’ve only just begun:
for the day You’ll hold her in Your arms,
Oh Risen Lord, my precious one.
-mwy, ‘the ghost’

I was thinking this morning that there’s a short-list of musical artists that I love and/or respect so greatly that I must own whatever they release as soon as they release it. Case in point, this morning Dust of Mars ILL announced via their mailing list that he (and Beat Rabbi) had just done an 18-track double-disc remix of Mars ILL’s 2003 EP “Blue Collar Sessions” entitled “Black Listed Sessions”. I ordered it immediately. You see, Dust is in the habit of remixing his own work, and the results have been consistently amazing – sometimes the remixes are even better than the originals. No small feat, when you consider Mars ILL is behind such underground classics as “Raw Material”, “Backbreakanomics” and “Pro Pain”.

Anyways, I thought about it a bit, and here’s my short-list of “musical artists/groups so awesome I buy whatever they release as soon as they release it”:
x. Mars ILL
x. Project 86
x. mewithoutYou
x. Thrice
x. Deepspace5
x. Underoath
x. Sintax the Terrific
x. DJ Dust
x. As Cities Burn

I’ve had quite a day already.

I was looking at the leaves
Climbing to the tops of the trees
But you were nowhere to be found,
Just beneath all the green
You were buried like a little seed
Among the roots and underground,
I was licking at the leaves
But I was in short sleeves and you -
You were like some sickness that I caught.
My sweetheart moved away,
Swept off like garbage in the alleyway…
…and I need more grace than I thought.

‘Cuz Brother, I’m far
Brother I’m far away
I’m far away, Brother…
I’m far away from everything
I’m far away,
Brother, I’m far away from everything good!

She’s like a hot cloth on a fevered head
And like a needle she leads me
(Well, I follow like thread)
Tie me up! Untie me!
All this wishing I was dead is getting old, is getting old…
It goes on, but it’s old.

I was swimming through the waves
For what must have been days
But could find no relief,
When I started sinking down
I thought for certain I would drown
Until I saw you in the ocean underneath
All the bright coloured fish
Tell of a treasure in a dull shell,
“Such subtlety, so easily missed!”
You, my hidden pearl of pure and perfect love
And I’m a living example of 100 percent the opposite of this

If I ask the same questions
Well, you say I ask the same questions
(Well maybe I repeat myself from time to time)
But if I ask the same the same questions
And they’re like “no”… but I ask the same questions
(It’s because everyone who answers me is a liar.)

She’s like a hot cloth on a fevered head
And like a needle she leads me
(Well, I follow like thread)
But you untied me – didn’t you untie me, Lord?
And now I haven’t even thought about
Killing myself in almost five months.
-mewithoutYou “Tie Me Up! Untie Me!”

Although it’s been years and years since thoughts of dying as a result of acts of my own volition danced their way through my head…

I find the same tangle of emotions runs up and floods me through whenever, by the grace of God, my sin is exposed and dealt with. Because, in many ways, it’s a re-living of a much more important death than the physical one I’ll pass through someday.

I’m thankful for these days of reminder that I am both literally and figuratively “post-suicide”.

Jesus saves me everyday, but some days I feel it much more acutely than others.

The bird that plucked the Olive Leaf
(has) Been circlin’ like a record ’round the spindle of my mind
Where the needle’s worn the grooves too deep,
And scratched the wax that’s blistered from the heat besides
From any movement in the room -
If my cat walked by, the arm skipped
But to my surprise,
My interrupting cat improved
The sound already so severely compromised…

The needle’s worn the grooves too deep. (x4)

I’m a donkey’s jaw on a desert dune
Beside the bush that Moses saw that burned and yet was not consumed!
She’s the silver coin I lost! I’m the sheep who slipped away!
We pray with fingers crossed, but You listen patiently anyway.

I wrote a little song for you
With a melody I’d borrowed, put to words that didn’t rhyme
To repeat what you already knew,
As the stones thrown at your window tapped in syncopation.

You kept a distance, out of fear you’d break
But what good’s a single wind-chime hanging quiet all alone?
The music our collisions make
Is the sound that turns “the road that leads us back home” into “home.”

The music our collisions make. (x4)

I had a rusty spade, but I’m not the fighting sort!
If I was Samson I’d have found that harlot’s blade and cut my own hair short!
Then, in a market dimly lit, I’d come casually to pay:
“You see, my coins are counterfeit. Would you accept them anyway?”

So spare me your goodbyes, your waving-handkerchief goodbyes!
Given my tendency to err so on the sentimental side,
I will spare you my goodbyes:

The truth belongs to God! (The mistakes were mine.)
-mewithoutYou “In A Market Dimly Lit”

And now that I’ve quoted the song I’ve had in my head all day, check out this video of a humanist Jew debating some other dude that Christian rock doesn’t suck. Be warned: It’s a rather extensive debate, very good, and features musical interludes provided by the guy arguing in favour which includes the likes of Larry Norman, mewithoutYou, and Over the Rhine… as well as others.

Long story short: It’s stellar. Check it out.

Kind of a sobering song to start a Saturday to, but a welcome reminder:

Being cautious to take a verse out of context, I’d point you to Job 13:15, which says: “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” – it’s a hard thing to come to the Lord and say: “Hey! Pull a “Job” on me if it draws me to You more! I’m a sheep of a man – break my legs so I can’t wander from You! Break my heart if that’s what it takes! Shatter my life into a million pieces and destroy it utterly if it means I come out loving You more! Rip my mind into shards if it makes me rejoice in You more! If killing me is the only way to teach me how to find my everything in You Lord, then do it!” As hard as it is to come to a point where we can (honestly) pray such things; coming to that place and recognizing in it the supreme importance of knowing and loving Christ above all other things (and at their EXPENSE – but for their ultimate BENEFIT)… in this we find real life and truth.

I think it’s safe to say Paul, directly inspired by God, felt this way:

Philippians 3:8-11 ESV (Emphasis Mine)
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith– that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

So, having this on the mind, today is basically a reading day… reading for courses, reading another chapter of Desiring God, reading a couple short books that have come my way, and such. Probably sneak some cleaning and laundry in there somewhere too.

Thus, it’s a low-key day. After a non-stop week, it’s welcome.

Anyways, with dangerous thoughts racing in my mind, here’s some words from Mr. Weiss (the key word in this chorus is “whatever“):

“Open wide my door,
(My Lord, my Lord)
Open wide my door,
(To whatever makes me love You more)
Open wide my door,
(While there’s still light to run towards)
Open wide my door…”
mewithoutYou – “C Minor”

So, in an effort to rip off Noah’s ideas as much as possible (and also because I never did a ‘best albums of 2005′), here are MY “Ten Albums that Changed my Life”:

01. Project 86 – “Drawing Black Lines”
If I was stuck on a desert island with one album, this would probably be it. DBL got me through high school almost single-handedly. It was the soundtrack to living, and to top it off every word screamed personal reform to me – it is an album of rebirth and true worship in many ways to me.

02. Argyle Park – “Misguided”
I have always had a passing interest in electronic music, and industrial music (which fuses metal and electronic together creatively) has always been one of my favorite genres. Not only is this album a landmark industrial album, but it also helped me to develop the ability to question *intelligently* what I believe.

03. Further Seems Forever – “The Moon is Down”
The album that got me into what would come to be known as ‘emo’… also my introduction to Chris Carabba. Also the soundtrack to my 3-year relationship with a girl (insert shock and memories here).

04. Mars Ill – “Raw Material”
I’ll never forget listening to “Love’s Not” on a GAS compilation and getting hooked, then downloading 3 or 4 mp3′s with a dialup modem just to hear more. Mars Ill got me into rap/hiphop, and despite now owning everything they’ve ever released, this is probably still my favorite work of theirs. Personal challenges abound within.

05. Tonex – “Pronounced Toe-Nay”
Bought it on a whim (which I don’t do often) and it took me a good week to get into it, but otherwise I might never have gotten into jazz/blues and the whole hybrid urban music thing. One of the most diverse urban albums ever… like… I don’t play it for people often enough… but I should.

06. Deepspace5 – “The Night We Called it a Day”
If there was ever a hiphop album I’d consider a complete utter and total classic within which no weak tracks can be found, this is it. This is “hiphop complete” to me, the intro bangs, the skit bangs, and the beats are the most insane things in this world but they work so well regardless. This would be the other album I’d take to that desert isle.

07. Five Iron Frenzy – “Our Newest Album Ever!”
Yes, it is ska. But, it is FIF. FIF > You. Probably their best album ever too in some ways (though The End Is Here is close second).

08. MxPx – “Life in General”
Before Drawing Black Lines, this was the soundtrack to life. I listened through this over and over and over. I still remember flippin’ the tape I made of it in my walkman like at least 5 or 6 times a day. It was obsessive. I felt rebellious listening to it (in retrospect it isn’t even very rebellious as punk rock goes, but from my background it was I guess).

09. MeWithoutYou – “Catch For Us The Foxes”
Rarely has an album influenced my spiritual life as profoundly as Aaron Weiss and his friends on this record. Perhaps its his autistic ramblings about faith and existence, perhaps the bass guitar driven melodies that swirl around you… whatever it is its intoxicating and leaves an irremovable impression.

10. Pedro the Lion – “Control”
Control changed music for me. Control changed faith for me. Control changed literature and lyrics for me. My world hasn’t been the same since I listened through Control the first time, understood the story being told, and was convicted by it on a level that nearly parallels the way the Bible convicts me when I’m right with God.

.codE-