The pAper chAse
Someday This Could All Be Yours, Vol. 1
(2009, Kill Rock Stars)

by Justin Valmassoi

You know when you like a band even though there are about 145 reasons, very obvious reasons, why they go against one or several deeply ingrained preferences you have held for years?  The pAper chAse is that band for me (for a lot of you, it’s the Jonas Brothers). I struggled to dismiss them as some sort of hybrid Shellac/Jesus Lizard thing with an annoying frontman, but that ignores their rampant experimentation, stylistic flourishes, ridiculous ear for melody and the simple fact that whenever one of their records comes on I am overcome with an unbelievable urge to flail my arms about and make little stabbing motions and almost kind of lurchingly twitch and dance (Not in any traditional sense. It’s more like an extended, rhythmic siezure involving little “piano hands.” In fact, forget I said anything.) We all have our “I don’t get it but I GET IT” bands. The pAper chAse is most assuredly mine.

John Congleton, the spastic, nasal ringleader behind their very identifiable sound has worked as a producer/engineer for so many semi-household names it’s a miracle he’s not more widely recognized. R. Kelly, Explosions in the Sky, The Mountain Goats, Modest Mouse, 90 Day Men, The Roots, fucking Bono, William Elliott Whitmore, Antony & the Johnstons and about a million others have benefitted from his mastery of recording techniques. The band’s KRS debut (2004’s God Bless Your Black Heart) remains one of the most rewarding headphone experiences you’re likely to hear, every song threaded together with an impenetrable web of samples, multitracked vocals and slightly woozy strings. A contemporary once described it as “a record I can’t recommend to anyone but that everyone should hear.” It remains their most cohesive sonic statement to date, which is not to speak ill of Someday This Could All Be Yours.

The trick comes in trying to describe what The pAper chAse do, in order to better describe how this record differs from their past releases. At heart, they are a fairly heavy indie rock band. Their music is loud, somewhat abrasive, and lends itself well to the aforementioned flailing or stomping. Congleton & Co. have made an art of the subtly detuned instrument, the seasick lurching string section and managing to incorporate any and every instrument/sample as percussion at one point or another. Southern Gothic lyricism tangles in and around teen angst quotables and bible-thumping dementia, delivered in every possible manner except subtle. The paranoid radio snippets, creaking stairs, squealing pigs and overall sonic tone of the pAper chAse’s output tends to make people believe they are either depressive or angry, all chest-beating rage over piano stabs and singing saw, when in reality much of Congleton’s lyrical bent is, at heart, redemptive. A call to action. A denial of fear or surrender. Admittedly, many songs work just fine if you simply want to terrify your ex by slipping them on a mixtape. (There is the added problem, if you are the type of person who quietly sings along to your headphones, that you will be on the train or in the gym next to someone you might think is attractive saying things like “Into the oven you go,” “Just put it in your mouth,” or “What should we do with your body?” which is always embarrassing. Always.)

Someday This Could All Be Yours is (allegedly) a concept album centered around natural disasters. 2006’s Now You Are One Of Us was a concept record (loosely) about leaving a mark in the world, threaded together by ghost metaphors. 2002’s Hide The Kitchen Knives was a (sort of) concept record about a murder, told from the knife’s point of view. Anyone familiar with these records knows that Congleton’s “concepts” simply mean that a bunch of histrionic first-person narratives, rife with death threats, calls on Old Testament vengeful God, vaguely sexual overtones and mini-mission statements will have occasional lyrical or thematic tie-ins with one another and/or a general overreaching motif.

This time around it is both clever and very telling that on his list of natural disasters (flood, forest fire, etc.) he also includes the human condition. That is, at heart, what every pAper chAse record is about, beneath the blaring dial tones, frantic cellos and clattering drum kit. Man’s reaction to or railing against Nature, either internal or external. Surrender and fear, love and loss, revenge and redemption … all the while making better use of the studio than any other band currently working. Someday This Could All Be Yours has its moments. ‘What Should We Do With Your Body (The Lightning)’ holds its own with the best of their back catalogue, pig squeals giving way to an almost irresistible torrent of crashing drums and guitar squalls before being led, dizzy and stumbling, onto a canting deck of out-of-tune strings and tinkling piano, Congleton noting “God is everywhere” as the primary reason why he can have your death arranged.

While the rest of the album lacks the full-on aural assault of ‘The Lightning,’ the band nonetheless pull a staggering array of new tricks out of their seemingly inexhaustible bag to help propel Congleton’s verbal tics and spasms forward without straying too far from the sound they have spent a decade honing.

… but it’s still a very distinct sound that will only appeal to folks with a predilection for “piano hands” and flailing. Someday This Could All Be Yours continues The pAper chAse’s legacy, securing them even more firmly in the niche they alone occupy, and, as my fellow record reviewer so accurately stated, I can’t recommend it to anyone, but you really ought to hear it.  

The pAper chAse plays Friday, July 3rd and Saturday, July 4th, 2009 at The Empty Bottle (1035 N. Western).