THE EARLY NOVEMBER
The Mother, The Mechanic and The Path
Drive-Thru
· Band name also serves as target date to finish listening to the album.
The triple album has long been reserved as either the moment in a band’s life when it reaches its creative peak (The Clash’s Sandinista!) or when the group realizes the full potential of its collective ego (Rush’s Archives). Or both.
The Early November’s The Mother, The Mechanic, and The Path is certainly self-indulgent, but it’s hard to know if this is their creative peak (this is only their second full-length album). Some credit is due to Drive-Thru Records for even agreeing to release the 46-song, 130-minute opus.
Disc one is entitled The Mechanic, perhaps unintentionally ignoring the order of words in the album title. Dedicated to the band’s heavier emo and pop-rock stylings, the album shows their ear for melody, but it’s a little bit disappointing to realize that there doesn’t seem to be a theme weaving the whole album together. Disc two, The Mother, is acoustic, and shows the band being a little more sentimental, and perhaps a tad melodramatic. The disc’s opener, "My Lack of Skill," is a beautiful piano-driven ballad that displays The Early November at their best. But by the time The Path rolls around, patience is wearing thin and this band better be getting at something – they’re not. The disc starts with the arty portion of the record, a creepy James Earl Jones-ish spoken word intro. Perhaps the record company should have let the axe fall somewhere around song 23.
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