With their 10th anniversary on the horizon,
mewithoutYou opt to chase a different muse with
It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright, whose exhaustive title is buoyed by an emphasis on offbeat folk music and fractured
Neutral Milk Hotel-styled acoustics. Gone are the screamo flourishes and hoarse, half-shouted lyrics, having been replaced by what amounts to experimental campfire music with occasional stabs of orchestral chaos. "I've got a Walnut-brownie brain and Molasses in my veins," sings frontman
Aaron Weiss, who goes on to mention everything from "powdered sugar funnel cake cocaine" to "Carob-colored almond eyes" in his stream-of-consciousness zeal. The culinary picture he creates is fairly nonsensical, but the emphasis here is on the music, whose unexpected turns will either appetize or repulse longtime listeners. This is a band that routinely stretches the conventions of Christian-based rock, and
It's All Crazy! is perhaps their most boundary-defying album to date. ~ Andrew Leahey