Great Northern

Remind Me Where The Light Is

(Eenie Meenie)

Record Review by Amber Henson

I kind of missed the '90s music scene.  While many thirteen-year-olds were getting intimately acquainted with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and swooning over In Utero, I was basically listening to Michael Jackson and Weird Al Yankovic on repeat.  I just wasn’t interested in hearing music that made me depressed.  I was reluctant to grow up and join in teenage interests, and so hearing music made now that sounds reminiscent of those '90s bands doesn’t tug on any heartstrings because I never strung them to begin with.

So I enjoyed Great Nothern’s most recent album, Remind Me Where the Light Is, but it doesn’t really mean anything to me.  I can recognize why the filtered, echoey voices, the minor tones, the ballads, but I can’t get into it.  I think many people my age or a little older will appreciate what Great Northern is trying to communicate, but it seems I’m more like someone in their younger twenties when it comes to appreciating these particular sounds.

Of course, I always enjoy steady beats and crescendos, and there are tracks on the album that sound more like the bands that I really enjoy, such as Rilo Kiley and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  “Fingers”, the third track on the album, begins with Rachel Stolte’s quiet voice, and then intense violins come in, and Solon Bixler whispers to the listener about the “weight of the world.”  The song I enjoyed the most was the next track, a magical song entitled “Snakes” that makes me think of cowboys riding into town with a low bass line and driving drums.  It’s an epic song with lots of changes and high vocals.

Downbeat songs with minor tones have never been my scene exactly, but Great Northern certainly knows how to make them in a very appealing way.  Kind of makes me wish I could travel back in time to when my hormones ruled and everything sucked, so this album could be the "only thing that understands me!"