Quality B-Side noodling
Gregory R. Sollars | Sherman Oaks, CA United States | 08/24/2001
(3 out of 5 stars)
"This is the 1st single from 'It's A Wonderful Life' - I bought it when I was initially unable to find the import for IAWL and needed something to quench my thirst for new Sparklehorse. "Gold Day" is the only one of the four songs here that are on IAWL(the import anyway), and it's a truly beautiful song, easily shaming 99% of the songs released as singles this year. Now for the breakdown of the B-sides: "Heloise" is a little over a minute long, and is a nice little dirge-y tune played mostly on organ. "Devil's New", which I think may appear on the domestic version of IAWL(I seem to remember reading that somewhere)is 3 1/2 minutes of tinkling piano, strings and Linkous whispering in the background at certain points. Finally, "Maxine" is over ten minutes long, and is mainly carried by a Neil Young-ish guitar riff and Eno-like background sounds, sort of Virgina ambient music(I think I heard a frog croaking at one point...seriously). All in all, the B-sides sound mainly like Linkous experimenting in the studio, but they are pretty cool nonetheless. This one is probably not for the casual listener, but for the die hard fans, I think it's good to have."