Bombadil

I have to begin this review with an analogy that I've used before, but I think will be helpful in properly thinking about the Bombadil's new album Hold On. You see, I was watching a documentary about film director Terry Gilliam a few weeks back and something struck me. There are two kinds of weird; Brazil weird and Fisher King weird. Brazil is a movie that never tries to make any sense. Everyone talks about it being ‘influential’, but that’s really code for ‘complete nonsense’. It’s a movie that you see once, because you want to say you saw it. deep down though, you know you’ll never watch it again.

Musically, this is the equivalent of Xiu Xiu or Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica. When someone tells me they really love an album like that, my inclination is to think they are full of shit. I've never walked into a bar or cafe with that shit playing on the overhead. I've never heard it at a party. I have a hard time believing that many people put it on at home just for a good time.

Gilliam's Fisher King, on the other hand, is an altogether different kind of weird. The same artist applied his unique vision to a well-known, palatable format. Instead of the same humdrum romantic comedy garbage we’ve all seen too many times, you have a truly watchable and creative film. Sure, it doesn’t get all of the namedropping that Brazil does, but you are a lot more likely to watch it for fun. I would argue that makes it a better film and I would also argue the same for a musical equivalent. I had to explain all of that to lead off the following sentence.

Bombadil's Hold On is Fisher King weird.

Bombadil began in early 2005 after guitarist Bryan Rahija and bassist Daniel Michalak decided to start a band while undergraduates at Duke University after meeting while studying abroad in Bolivia. After returning to the United States, Michalak recruited his brother John to write drum parts for the songs and the three spent the holiday break pulling the songs together. Pianist and friend Stuart Robinson joined the band a few months later.

After a busy year of touring and writing music, Bombadil signed with Ramseur Records of Concord, NC after playing a show with The Avett Brothers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The group immediately set out recording a debut EP, which was released in May 2006. John Michalak left the band to pursue medical school and was replaced by James Phillips in the fall of 2007. The group released their first full length album entitled A Buzz, A Buzz on April 29, 2008. Their second album, Tarpits and Canyonlands, was released on July 7, 2009, after which the band spent a year on hiatus due to Daniel suffering from nerve damage in his hands.

Bombadil came back together in 2010 to record a follow up to Tarpits and Canyonlands. The album was recorded by drummer James Phillips in a barn on Pendarvis Farm (the same barn where The Decemberists recorded The King is Dead). The result, released on November 8, 2011, was All That the Rain Promises. The title is a homage to the mushroom collecting book All That the Rain Promises and More. After recording Metrics of Affection in 2013, Bryan Rahija left the band to attend business school in Michigan. In Rahija's absence, the other members recorded Hold On, their 5th full length album. Shortly before the release of this newest LP, it was announced that Stuart Robinson would be leaving the band to pursue personal interests, and Daniel and James would continue writing and touring as Bombadil.

The band has been regularly compared to groups like Fleet Foxes and the Mumford & Sons, but I think that comparison is, at best, unhelpful and, at worst, somewhat insulting to the guys in Bombadil. To begin, there have been so many comparisons made to Fleet & Sons over the last few years that I honestly don't know what it means anymore, past the fact that there will be a dude with a beard and probably some acoustic guitar. More importantly however, I believe Bombadil has a significantly different approach to music than either of those groups. Those are chicken soup bands. Without being insulting to either, Fleet Foxes and the Mumfords make music aimed at making your soul feel all warm and tingly. Bombadil engage the soul, but are more concerned with leaving the brain tingly.

Hold On is full of experiments in time and melody that put them a lot closer (in the modern environment) to groups like Dirty Projectors or Menomena. A better comparison though is that Bombadil's true origins lie with the wonderful past pop experimentation of groups like 10cc, XTC, and Talking Heads. Songs like "Rhapsody in Black & White" and "Bill You For Your Trash" are lyrically no more complex than even the most basic Avett Brothers ballad. But, it is the toying with rhthym and melody that give Bombadil a flavor your probably haven't heard before. To return to the Fisher King analogy, Bombadil is playing the silly love songs that we all know and love, but are applying their own unique take on the genre in a way that is both fascinating and engaging.

This is the best kind of art. It gives the audience a format they are familiar with, but presents them with a paradigm on that format which is wholly unfamiliar. In short, they are proving there is a way to make challenging pop music. Brazil albums are a diamond dozen. Just look at one of those awful Pitchfork lists that gets compiled at the end of the year. It is chalk full of stuff that you'll hear once in your life and never think about again. Hold On won't probably make any of those lists, but it will bring a lot more joy to the world than most of the albums that do. You can keep your Captain Beefheart. I'd rather hear "I'm Mandy, Fly Me"