Barbarossa 'Bloodlines'

 “Whoa chill out! Everybody just chill the fuck out. And love yourself.” whispers Bloodlines for the greater part of forty-two minutes and forty-nine seconds.

Barbarossa (aka Brit singer songwriter James Mathe) approaches his first electro album with a similar method as he did his acoustic past. Bare bones instrumentation. Swirly vocal melodies. Underwhelming or nonexistent beats. Like Portishead but without the weirdness. Like Hot Chip but without the weirdness. Like white boy British R&B with the musical accompaniment of a five dollar Casio keyboard. Exactly like that.

As I hinted at above, the overall lyrical message of the album is one of introspection and hope with little flashes of lost love and general vagueness. In S.I.H.F.F.Y. he falsettos to his lover he’d “break every bone to work this out” and in the title track (and probably best track) encourages her/him to “challenge what you see” or “you’ll never know how it feels to have hope.” Saviour Self (in a very self-help-book manner) states that there’s “no one in the world who can save you now but you” and “still I will not sit here and suffer, not on my watch.” And to add another light at the end of the tunnel, Pagliaccio (Italian for clown) might be a self-indictment of a past he’s not necessarily proud of. But it’s a past that he’s not ready to repent for or throw out as it has brought him to his current place. And in Seeds “last night it felt like the end was upon us. The things that were not said could be seeds if we let them grow.”

The vagueness comes into play on the track Turbine where I can’t make out a word of what he’s saying other than the word Turbine. And on Butterfly Plague he exclaims that “when the sun ray, when the butterfly plague, I want to be there.” Your guess is as good as mine but they both sound hopeful(?).

With exception to the up-tempo Turbine, Pagliaccio, and The Load, Bloodlines has a calm and dreamy feel that creates a thoughtful, peaceful atmosphere. I’ve been listening to it on bike rides and, without knowing the lyrics, it had me looking in. It’s the stuff soundtracks are made of. 

As a final thought, I hope we’re all there when the butterfly plague, how crazy would that be?

I went into this one blindly, so in lieu of not offering an album that I absolutely loved, check out The Rotaries Before Leaving (August 10, 2012). You can download it from their facebook page for a ‘name your price’ donation. They are a NYC rock band that was apparently raised on The Strokes, which is evident from each of their songs sounding exactly like late 90’s/early 00’s Strokes. Do it for Julian! https://www.facebook.com/therotaries/app_204974879526524

Dennis