Week of 8/18: Death Cab For Cutie, Boldy James
Eric and Miranda give some love to a Death Cab closer while Eli and Michael discuss a mutual favorite. All positivity from the Endless Scroll gang today.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him), Eric Bennett (they/them), Michael Brooks (he/him) and Miranda Reinert (she/her). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. On Substack, we’re also a weekly roundup of songs. Our format is simple: each of our four hosts picks a song they love and writes about it. There will be one free post every week, and more at the end of every month for paid subscribers. For the sake of your wallet, don’t start a paid subscription on Substack. Instead, sign up at the 2$ tier or higher on Patreon and we will gift you a subscription.
Death Cab For Cutie - “We Looked Like Giants”
Eric:
We have to begin with the indisputable fact that Transatlanticism is the best thing Death Cab for Cutie has ever done. There’s nothing more fun that making a definitive statement in hot take format to engage the crowd of people who reads this newsletter, so attempt to stoke discourse I shall. I think, though, that is the consensus opinion, at least at this point. That, and I think Miranda has my back on this, so I feel confident.
While Transatlanticism is maybe more known for its opener “The New Year,” or “Title and Registration” (two songs remembered for their opening lines) it also has a perfect closing track in “We Looked Like Giants.” The stormy, brooding track about fucking a small car is one of the most unique moments in the bands catalog, and a song I wish they had taken further inspiration from. Its narrative is simple and never tries to be anything else. It is, at the end of the day, a song about skipping class to hook up. A more specific experience sure, but an experience none the less. The song shifts and changes, moving from glowering verses to a chorus that thrashes and then into its extensive bridge of tinny drums and guitar riffs that ripple out like approaching thunder. I wish this had been the song that could have steered DCFC towards darker, more heavy rock. All things considered it isn’t that heavy, but it’s the closest this band ever gets to truly shredding, and I cherish it for that. It’s the rare song in the band’s discography that reminds you just how many grey skies hang over the band, literally and figuratively, despite their often quirky and warm rock.
Miranda:
I’d like to dispute Eric on the Best Thing Death Cab Has Ever Done, but they’re probably right. It’s a record so perfect I can hardly listen to it. The only thing that might top it for me is my favorite song of all time “Cath…” off their underrated 2008 album Narrow Stairs. The power of that song is unmatched.
But Eric chose “We Looked Like Giants” so I’ll save it for now.
I think what drives me away from wanting to listen to Transatlanticism most of the time is just how dreary the songs are. Nobody does a sad one like Ben, but where the record really shines for me is in the songs with teeth. “We Looked Like Giants” feels like it spins through the whole track. It’s darker without losing momentum and pulls you away from the narrative to focus on just how riffy and exciting they can be when they’re not being quirky and twee.
Two weeks in a row of me talking about how much I love Death Cab is maybe too much so this is a short one.
Boldy James - “Flight Risk”
Eli:
If you listened to Endless Scroll throughout 2020, then you knew that one of my favorite albums of the year was Boldy James’ shadowy, dust-coated mafia noir, The Price of Tea in China. Although I wasn’t familiar with him prior to that opus, the Detroit MC had been around for over a decade, having had a short-lived breakout in the early 2010s by putting out a handful of projects on Nas’ Mass Appeal label. By the time The Price of Tea in China came out, Boldy was a free agent who hadn’t put out a tape in two years, and he then proceeded to drop four (4) albums in 2020 alone, embracing the prolific, bulldozing work ethic of his new associates in Griselda.
The reason I loved The Price… so much was because it sounded like an album that was years in the making; a dense, 4D rendering of Boldy’s upbringing on the streets, assembled meticulously over vivid Alchemist beats that creaked and shifted like the floorboards of a well-worn rowhouse. Last week, Boldy linked up with the Alchemist once again for a new record called Bo Jackson, which, like all Boldy records, is best digested as a full piece, but can certainly be previewed with the woozy “Flight Risk.”
Over muted bass, primitive drum thwacks and a loping piano line that sounds like it was played on an instrument covered in cobwebs, Boldy does what he does best: rap like he’s talking to himself. Whereas contemporaries like Conway the Machine, Benny the Butcher and Freddie Gibbs — other figures who’re putting a modern touch on late-Nineties gangsta rap — repeatedly assert in their music that their traumatic former lives are more authentic than that of their tall-tale-telling peers, Boldy isn’t really interested in self-empowering flexes.
Instead, his raps read like poems that were stitched together by a fridge-full of post-it notes; scribblings, schemes and reminders to help him keep track of all the moving parts of his drug-dealing day-to-day. “Flight Risk” is different in that it sounds like Boldy musing that maybe he would’ve been signed if he “wasn't in the streets full time.” Later, he offers, “This blood sport, jumped off the front porch under the wind chime / Life of a block bleeder, facin' life, I had to risk mine.” With his deep, confident yet understated delivery and the busy beat behind him, it almost seems like Boldy is saying these things without the expectation of anyone else listening. That intimacy between him and the microphone is what I find so striking.
Michael:
I’ve been listening to Bo Jackson on repeat since it dropped last Friday, my last.fm grid will surely corroborate my story, and I’m convinced that there’s nothing better in this world than hearing Boldy James rap over a beat from the Alchemist. My favorite album from last year was The Price Of Tea In China and Bo Jackson is a worthy follow up, featuring the same introspective tales and woozy production that I loved from their previous team ups without ever feeling like it’s rehashing old ideas. It’s a bit darker and stranger than it’s predecessor, most evident on songs like “Flight Risk” where the beat gnaws and crawls like a home invasion gone wrong, and those moments are where I think this album really hits its stride.
I would have been fine with writing up any song from this album for the newsletter today and “Flight Risk” is one of many low stakes moments on Bo Jackson that lingers with you long after the album is finished. Maybe it’s Alchemist’s sinister beat, which lays the foundation for the entire track, that makes you feel like there’s a pit in your stomach whenever the track finally ends. Or maybe it’s Boldy’s verse, which is delivered in a chilling half-spoken manner, bringing every syllable and bar on the track to life. The truth is that it’s somewhere in the middle, the intersection of two singular artists with decades of experience under their belt and trusting one another’s instincts to make something that sounds familiar but is truly unlike anything else before. Sign me up for a hundred more albums from Boldy James and The Alchemist because it honestly doesn’t get much better than this.