Born Without Bones, “Say Hello” LP

cover-born-without-bones-say-helloBorn Without Bones
Say Hello
(Animal Style Records)

Sometimes, when I listen to records for review, I don’t have time to listen to both sides of an LP at once. This means that, occasionally, I listen to side A in the morning and side B in the afternoon, or one side on Monday, and another on Tuesday. I take good notes, but every so often, it means that I miss certain details that would’ve been revealed in a listen that went all the way through.

In the case of Born Without Bones‘ new album, Say Hello, it took a Sunday afternoon listen all the way through to notice that each side has a completely different energy level than the other. Opening track, “Say Hello,” and its follow-up, “Out of Step,” are full to the brim with pop and energy. For that matter, the boundless energy follows through the entire first side. The second side? Acoustic. Evidently, frontman Scott Ayote had originally planned for the entire album to be acoustic, but he had a bunch of friends who wanted to play on the record.

Thus, you end up with this record, which is almost like two albums in one. While the splitting the songs works wonderfully on vinyl, I can’t imagine that this sounds quite the same as a digital download where, halfway through, you’re essentially switching gears from a hand-clapping, head-bopping, punky pop party, and slowing way the hell down. It’s a bit disconcerting, even though “Arachnophobia” and “GKN” do a nice job of bridging the gap, and sort of easing the throttle down to a more manageable speed with cello, violin, and assorted brass.

As per usual, Animal Style has done a bang-up job with the vinyl. In my case, it’s a gorgeous blue out of 200, although it was also pressed on -100 black and 200 “wheat” brown/yellow that I’m sure mirrors the cover art. Actually, so does the blue. Nice job, Animal Style. Impressive.