Goldstein gleefully ignites Aflame
Mike Desjardin
Issue date: 9/11/08 Section: Arts and Entertainment
Todd Goldstein is the kind of artist to take an established blues ballad called “Jon the Revelator” and use it – gospel roots and all – as inspiration for an optimistictrack entitled “Jon the Escalator.” The song’s opening lines are about as gleefully tongue-in-cheek as one would expect after noting the title: “Jonathan, you’re turning into stairs again / You’re giving free rides to your friends …” That’s Goldstein’s solo debut — Kids Aflame — in a nutshell: bizarre, but never too reliant on its charm that it neglects the emotional aspects of acute, observational song writing.
Despite the fact that Kids Aflame wasn’t released under Todd Goldstein’s name, Arms (the band’s name) is a one man show, with Goldstein playing nearly every instrument on the record himself (which is impressive, given the list includes a mandolin and a ukulele). Lyrically, Goldstein is from the David Byrne school of thought: verses are built around the observation of immediate, fleeting sensations of everyday life. This doesn’t limit the expansiveness of the record, though. This is partly because the album is thematically eclectic — filling and draining space from one track to the next seamlessly but also because hearing someone sing about the simple pleasures of sleeping through noisy Sunday morning construction resonates beautifully with almost everyone.
While the actual guitar work is hardly groundbreaking, the structures of these tracks are astonishing. “Shitty Little Disco” begins as a simple guitar riff over a distorted backbeat, but eventually evolves into a layered, low-tech pop ballad about a night out on the town that falls apart when its protagonist has too much to drink and instigates a fight with another party-goer.
Other songs, like “Eyeball,” are less brash, relying almost entirely on Goldstein’s vocals, an acoustic guitar and the gentle plucking of a mandolin rather than a steadily building crescendo of sound. The track (about the peculiarity of eyes and their functions) sounds like the kind of tangential, inconsequential ramblings that would be written in the margins of Goldstein’s daily planner. Goldstein, proving that even a disciplined songwriter can lose focus from time to time, drifts away from dreamy imagery to cathartic feelings of desire, but even though “Eyeball” is unfocused, its faults – as well as the faults of the album – never fully detract from Kids Aflame’s sheer optimism.
Goldstein doesn’t waste anytime with pity or redemption, even throughout the darkest moments of the record (the intoxicated fight in “Shitty Little Disco” being one of them). The lyrics are written with a comforting sense of familiarity and belonging.
Kids Aflame is a modest celebration of self-acceptance and, clocking in at 41 minutes, does not overstay its welcome. Despite Goldstein’s occasional lack of focus, Kids Aflame is a brilliantly paced collection of songs that blends together perfectly despite the clean distinction between each track. In a relatively weak year for alternative rock, Arms is a head above the rest.
Despite the fact that Kids Aflame wasn’t released under Todd Goldstein’s name, Arms (the band’s name) is a one man show, with Goldstein playing nearly every instrument on the record himself (which is impressive, given the list includes a mandolin and a ukulele). Lyrically, Goldstein is from the David Byrne school of thought: verses are built around the observation of immediate, fleeting sensations of everyday life. This doesn’t limit the expansiveness of the record, though. This is partly because the album is thematically eclectic — filling and draining space from one track to the next seamlessly but also because hearing someone sing about the simple pleasures of sleeping through noisy Sunday morning construction resonates beautifully with almost everyone.
While the actual guitar work is hardly groundbreaking, the structures of these tracks are astonishing. “Shitty Little Disco” begins as a simple guitar riff over a distorted backbeat, but eventually evolves into a layered, low-tech pop ballad about a night out on the town that falls apart when its protagonist has too much to drink and instigates a fight with another party-goer.
Other songs, like “Eyeball,” are less brash, relying almost entirely on Goldstein’s vocals, an acoustic guitar and the gentle plucking of a mandolin rather than a steadily building crescendo of sound. The track (about the peculiarity of eyes and their functions) sounds like the kind of tangential, inconsequential ramblings that would be written in the margins of Goldstein’s daily planner. Goldstein, proving that even a disciplined songwriter can lose focus from time to time, drifts away from dreamy imagery to cathartic feelings of desire, but even though “Eyeball” is unfocused, its faults – as well as the faults of the album – never fully detract from Kids Aflame’s sheer optimism.
Goldstein doesn’t waste anytime with pity or redemption, even throughout the darkest moments of the record (the intoxicated fight in “Shitty Little Disco” being one of them). The lyrics are written with a comforting sense of familiarity and belonging.
Kids Aflame is a modest celebration of self-acceptance and, clocking in at 41 minutes, does not overstay its welcome. Despite Goldstein’s occasional lack of focus, Kids Aflame is a brilliantly paced collection of songs that blends together perfectly despite the clean distinction between each track. In a relatively weak year for alternative rock, Arms is a head above the rest.
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