The opening lines of first track "The Good Life" are a rather unusual place to start, though.  "I've got my hands in the sink," de Zoete sings, "I'm washing dishes while the sun goes down."  In the hands of someone else, this might be the start of a story about a downtrodden man trying to escape from a hard-luck town.  But with perhaps the most unassuming opening line of a love song, de Zoete wants to tell a far different tale.  "The Good Life" unfolds like scenes in a movie, but these are the seemingly mundane, stage-setting scenes whose function is to leave an impression without the need for an actor to utter a line.  "We're getting dressed in our room," he continues, "I hear the tick and tack of high-heel shoes."  The imagery is striking, but brilliant for what it doesn't say as much as what it does: You make me indescribably happy.  Near the track's closing, de Zoete repeats the dish-washing imagery ("I've got these dishpan hands"), but immediately subverts it ("You let them hold you til it's closing time").  In this film, the actors say "I love you" without ever speaking those three words.

The counterpoint to "The Good Life" is "We're Dying," the story of a crumbling marriage.  With delicate percussion and finger-picked acoustic guitar, de Zoete's character makes simple yet powerful observations ("There's no more magic in your hair") as he wakes from a dream in which his wife slept "with someone we both know."  He almost seems to wish for it to be true, as it would at least provide some tangible reason to leave her, rather than continue to endure the slow, unspoken dissolution of their relationship.  He realizes that their marriage is broken beyond repair, but is unwilling to seize any initiative to do something about it ("Where we go from here, I leave that up to you").  It's fascinating stuff.

Both tracks (along with "Going Nowhere") are available for free download for a limited time.

Colour Film is a collection of great stories, told with Matthew de Zoete's strong vocals, and wrapped in instrumental accompaniment that is atmospheric but never gets in the way.

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Given and Taken in Ink - May 2012 from gtimusic on 8tracks.

As usual, this month's mix is a collection of songs featured on GTI over the past month, along with a healthy dose of stuff in the "to-be-written-about" pile.  One day...

Let me know what you think in the comments section.  Or by clicking the heart icon above.  It's the Internet; e-hearts are worth their weight in gold.

Anyway, here's the playlist:

1. Passion Pit - Take a Walk
2. Races - Year of the Child
3. Conveyor - Mane
4. Burning Jet Black - Magazine Girl
5. The Walkmen - Heaven
6. Ramona Falls - Sqworm
7. Matthew de Zoete - The Good Life
8. Hexes & Ohs - The Colors
9. Ben Folds Five - Do It Anyway [demo]
10. The Rest - Could Be Sleeping
11. Sonic Hearts Foundation - The Storm

The band will release its debut LP, which is currently available for preorder, on July 17 via Brooklyn's Paper Garden Records.  That album cover is damn pretty, too.

Check out the video for "The Storm":

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Gossamer is due for release on July 24.

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Well, sadly, the Whiskey Saints don't exist anymore.

I know, I know.  It's my fault.  Who could live with that kind of pressure?  It's too much, right?  And so another promising young band bites the dust.  Nice job, Greg.

But here's the thing...  Certain key members of the Whiskey Saints - David Bloomfield (lead guitar), David Sparrow (vocals/guitar), Jeff Bell (drums), and Rob Hughes (bass) - have formed a new band from the Saints' ashes.  Luckily, those were the guys really pulling their weight in the previous band.  To be honest, I was never a big fan of the other guys.  Didn't really bring much to the table, you know?  It's addition by subtraction, in my opinion.

And so Burning Jet Black is born.

For the price of just your email address, you can click that link above and get a free download of "Magazine Girl," the band's first single.  It's a snarling rocker that (dare I say?) is the sound of what modern rock radio should be playing these days.  Comparisons to the former band's music aren't really apt, though.  There's a rawness to this track that is unlike anything the Whiskey Saints ever did.  It's probably the bitterness over that band's breakup.  And, ya know...the departure of those former members.

Day 1 in the studio; Photo from www.benfolds.com

Hello!  How was your weekend?  Mine was a disaster.  Now that we've gotten that out of the way, you may or may not have noticed in the wee hours of Saturday morning that Ben Folds posted an unmastered version of "Do It Anyway," a track from Ben Folds Five's forthcoming new album.  (If you weren't aware that BFF were back together and recording a new album, I'll give you the next few minutes to recover from the audible gasp of shock and joy...)

The track was released on Folds' Facebook page, but just in case you're avoiding the whole social networking thing, check it out here:
MP3: Ben Folds Five - Do It Anyway [demo]

Ben Folds Five will be funding and promoting this album entirely independent of any record label (huzzah!).  The band launched a PledgeMusic project about 12 hours ago, and has already crushed the minimum target.  That means more money gets diverted charities that support music education and the field of music therapy, so it's well worth preordering now instead of waiting until the release date.

But not so for the Rest. After a tireless six-month search for a solution, the band was able to rescue the recordings with the help of a company that recovers aircraft "black box" data.  SEESAW would see the light of day.

And in an interesting twist, SEESAW reflects the sense of elation the band must have felt upon recovering their work, despite being written well beforehand.  There's an exuberant joy to these songs, which combine elegant chamber pop with elements of shoegaze and the soaring vocals of singer Adam Bentley.  It's somewhat reminiscent of another band that enduring staggering hardship before the release of its album: Ra Ra Riot.  Like that band, the Rest found a way to channel hardship into something something constructive, and the results are nothing short of beautiful.

Several months ago, the Rest gave us a preview of SEESAW with a double A-side single, "Always on My Mind" and "The Last Day."  It was difficult to make any conclusions about the album, though, as the two songs differed so much.  Would SEESAW be more like the shoegaze-influenced "Always on My Mind," wistful and heavy with reverb?  Or would it skip along like "The Last Day," with its falsetto vocals and quicker tempo?

In truth, the Rest have recorded an album so much more versatile than I ever would have expected.  There are some familiar moments, such as the fuzzy guitars in opener "Who Knows" and "John Huston."  But then the seven-piece band pulls out something like "Laughing Yearning," which seems to draw inspiration from Paul Simon; or "Young and Innocent," a full throttle rocker which still manages to squeeze organ and strings into the mix.  There's the sprightly, soaring "Hey! For Horses."  And, as one of the album's emotional high points, "Could Be Sleeping" opens with Bentley sounding a bit like Bono before confidently letting it rip at the song's climax.

SEESAW was Given and Taken in Ink's most highly anticipated album of 2012 because of its history.  But a compelling story isn't enough; ultimately, it's about the music.  Luckily, the Rest have delivered an astonishingly good collection of songs in SEESAW.  It's a record that should easily hold up as one of the best releases of the year.

SEESAW is available for preorder from Auteur Recordings, and will be released on June 19.  In the meantime, stay tuned to the Rest's bandcamp page, where one song will be available for streaming/download each week until the album's release.

Mummy Short Arms will release the "Silicone Dream" single on May 14, followed by their debut album Old Jack's Windowless Playhouse on May 21 via Flowers in the Dustbin Records.

Check out the video for "Silicone Dream," which is just as wild and irreverent as the song itself:

Or if audio-only is your thing:

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I spent three awful years in New Jersey.  It had nothing to do with the state itself, but it was a time in my life that I really could have used a band like the Gaslight Anthem.  I needed something with spirit - an energy to say "Fuck the world!" instead of just bumming about how shitty life can be.  I finally got the hell out of there in 2006, which just happened to be the very same year the Gaslight Anthem started playing in New Brunswick.  It was almost like the state gave me the finger on my way out.

I'm happy to report that the band is back and in fine form.  "45," the first single from the Gaslight Anthem's upcoming album, Handwritten, is a throwback to the band's propulsive, punk-influenced roots.  The album doesn't have a release date yet, but hopefully we'll see it around the summer.  Check it out: