Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Review: Lacrosse - Bandages for the Heart


Lacrosse's second album Bandages for the Heart is really a record of contrasts. Introducing tracks We Are Kids and You Are Blind are upbeat hits from a world where the sun always shines, love automatically is reciprocal and any problems easily are put off until tomorrow. Beneath the surface, however, there is a worry which constantly interrupts the party by pointing to the fragility of life. The transition between life angst in My Stop's story of an abandoned young person's consideration of the final farewell and hazy happiness in Come Back Song #1 is an almost provocative and for the record representative reminder of how the pendulum of life balances between joy and sorrow.

At a first listen, Bandages for the Heart could be mistaken for music made for children. Nina Wähä and Kristian Dahl convey the lyrics by both singing everything at the same time throughout the record. Nina changes her voice to fit different emotional states and sings the way each song requires. Nina's vocals are consistently naive and childish independent of mood state as her voice gives the record its character. Kristian still sounds like he did on Lacrosse's debut album This New Year Will Be for You and Me and basically sings with the same style on every song.

The producer Jari Haapalainen has described Bandages for the Heart as "music performed by children, but written for adults who stagger in life". I do not know if this concept was Haapalainen's or the band's idea but it does not really matter. The important thing is that the warmth from the debut album still remains and that the playfully interjected strange synth sounds are wonderful. Bandages for the Heart could very well be the first record which survived Haapalainen's production and that in itself is amazing. Every rule has its exceptions.

Each of the eleven songs stay in memory and they all have their little peculiarities. Song in the Morning, My Stop and Come Back Song #1 are my favourite songs. You can not ignore that My Stop and Come Back Song #1 are the emotionally strongest tracks. My Stop is a painfully honest depiction infinitely far away from children's music. My Stop describes how a young person who undergoes a life crisis becomes declared an idiot and ignored by the therapist.

When I talked to the psychiatrist, she merely shrugged at me
said this thing you're experiencing, you're not suicidal
you're just a human being my friend
and everybody feels like you do anyway

But even though everything may not be as dramatic and life-changing in retrospect, the problems and feelings are completely real and incredibly stressful for the one with emotional pain.

But look at me, now look at me
with my hand and my feet on the reiling
with my heart all bleed out
I bet you did not believe me when I said that this was different
When I said that this was different

Something is very wrong when someone who seeks help instead gets stamped on. My Stop continues with a monologue in which the character stages suicide to look like murder in order to give the parents, who face the nightmare of surviving their own child, an outsider towards whom they can direct their grief and anger. My Stop is very thought-provoking criticism of the current individualised and competitive society which, deliberately or not, has lost both safety nets and humanity. Come Back Song #1 starts a few seconds later with its contagious life happiness which serves as a first-aid kit for fragile young people crying inside.

I feel very strongly about this album. If it had come a few years earlier it had perhaps been one of the really big records of my life. I have not been emotionally hit like this since Hello Saferide's and Katie Goes to Tokyo's debut albums in 2005 and 2006. Listening to Lacrosse is like for once to be understood by an emotional person with a warm heart and similar life values.

Lacrosse do not give any answers or universal solutions though. Bandages for the Heart is no key, only a consolation for the moment. Lacrosse just ask questions, as in the final song What's Wrong With Love. It is up to ourselves to shape our own future.

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