Search - Lilys :: 3-Way

I'll have what Heasley is drinking

04/24/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I'll start with praise: Lilys are incapable of a bad album, and 3-Way helps support this claim. 3-Way, like its LP predecessor, Better Can't Make Your Life Better, and like so many 1960s pop records, is an absolute smorgasbord of happy, ambitious sound, all clearly defined and heard within songs. Think about amazing songs like the Beatles "Got to Get You Into My Life" and you have an idea. EVERY instrument sounds so close to the speaker, like a kiss in the ear almost. Tambourines, horns, vintage-amp guitar snarl, percussive pops, finger snaps, and handclaps never sound mixed below one another, and somehow never fall into "wall of sound" mush. You can put on any Lilys song and be able to follow any instrument's progression from start to finish. And that's a good thing. A really good thing, one that doesn't happen much these days for reasons that completely elude me. 3-Way is wonderfully weird, too. The opening song, "Dimes Make Dollars" (amen! how bout pennies?) sounds most like their past album: a fuzzy "Satisfaction"-sounding guitar making a Monkees run, lots of percussive pee-zazz, an organ line bouncing like a ball over song lyrics on a television screen. Right, totally fun. Socs Hip is like seven minutes long and chock full of musical twists. Leo Ryan (Our Pharoah's Slave), also like seven minutes, is just perfect. I can promise you that you will never hear another band write a song that goes from like the Monkees to Barry White to the Zombies to Philly soul and disco strings all so fluidly. So Heasley continues to prove that he is an absolute evil genius, and an unabashed fan of all kinds of music. However, all that fawning said, I don't like this album near as much as "Better Can't Make Your Life Better." Not even close. On THAT album, Lilys pulled off an amazing feat: it sounded like Mozart took a crack at writing songs like "Daydream Believer" and "She's Not There" and actually pulled it off. The songs had the most remarkable percussive propulsion, completely joyous and complex harmonies and guitar lines, and they CLIMBED as much as they turned. Plus they were just catchy as hell. Better Can't Make Your Life Better is one of the best pop albums ever, in a class with "Revolver" and "Pet Sounds" and "Oracle and Odessy," among other sixties giants, and if you laugh at that comment now, meet me in like twenty years when revisionist dopes catch up to Kurt Heasley, who too often gets blasted as being too far behind. Life is ironic like that, though. Anyhow, 3-Way has too many turns and not enough climbs. It is far more abstract, cold, and distant than "Better Can't Make Your Life Better," and reminiscent of the change Brian Wilson underwent when he hooked up with Van Dyke Parks, which is not a HORRIBLE thing, but I like Pet Sounds better than Smile, if you get what I'm saying. It's stuffy and obtuse and too British sounding. Those Brits are wound too tight and need to unclench their buttockseseses once in a while. Listening to 3-Way, I almost feel like I should put one of those unifocal glasses and squeeze it on an eye while drinking tea in a straight-backed chair. I don't want that from Lilys. I want to drink sodee pops and watch my three-year-old jump on the bed. That was what Better Can't Make Your Life Better delivered. 3-Way is still a Lilys record, and still completely enjoyable. Their emphasis on sound will always make them fun. I recommend this album, but go get Better Can't Make Your Life Better first."

We'll meet you with the camera's eye!

12/28/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Another brilliant work by Kurt Heasley! This album takes weeks and maybe months to fully digest with its unexpected turns and dazzling orchestrations. Not as "riff" heavy as 'Better Can't Make Your Life Better' but if you like 60's Brit Pop and don't mind imaginative lyrics then this disc is for you. To me, definitely worth its weight in gold!"

If You Love 60's Brit Pop...

02/17/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"...you will like this. If you don't, you probably won't. The organ is amazing and you will feel like you landed in London, circa 1967. I like it--it's fun and makes me wish I could pop on my white gogo boots and fringe vest and frug frug frug my problems away."