Vancouver by La Dispute (2006)

Kind of like: Touche Amore, Victor! Fix the Sun, Saetia

Genre: Post-Hardcore, Screamo, Blues, Progressive

Listen Here: Mediafire , Bandcamp

Order Here: No Sleep Records

I noticed to my surprise that there is only one post containing the music of La Dispute. I'm near certain everyone should listen to this band, perhaps more that everyone reading this blog has before, however, La Dispute is one of those few rocks, and I can happily write about them in nearly any mood. This probably goes hand in hand with my ability to listen to this same band at any given, inappropriate moment to be listening to hardcore, and not give a single fuck. The bastards probably think I'm mad, because I listen to La Dispute in public. I've been telling myself "fuck'em" the lyrics are poetic and conversational, the music finds artistically drawn out patterns, and each band member is talented enough to push a segment of each song in his own manner. Besides, so what if they're right, they're goddam dirty bastards and it helps me get in the mood to write, and now I feel like writing a tome of a review about this group so bear with finding the links strewn about the post, please.

J'adore their two LPs (I hate speaking french, since I can only kind of, but I'm trying to be romantic here). But more about them later: first their 7 inch [Untitled] (2008), and their (2010) split with Touche Amore, titled Searching For A Pulse/The Worth Of The World are. These too, along with their full lengths, are the essentially noble pieces of the dissonance which I love as hardcore music. The 7inch feels typical heavier than other releases, Shall Never Lose Its Power is my midday jam when I've just started drinking. The split with Touche Amore is just incredible, I think I might like Touche's side better, but the contributions are perfectly traded, as little as they may be and I just pray La Dispute is as visibly influenced by this collaboration as Touche was on their latest release Parting the Seas Between Brightness and Me. As I said, they are subtle additions, but to me it makes a world of difference.

One great thing about Somewhere at the Bottom of the River between Vega and Altair (2008) is that it has one of the best post-hardcore intro ever, Such Small Hands, and the outro, Nobody Not Even The Rain works as its delicate balance, if played on repeat (or track 13 then 1) they recreate the title of an EE Cummings poem. The concept of this album isn't mind boggling, but it follows the general concept of EE's poem, and thank christ I have yet to marry, let alone divorce, I sing to every single track as if it were my heart-ache's anthem. My favourite part of the album might be in the bass flows of Bury Your Flame, but quite honestly I just deleted a 4 segment sentence justifying why other songs are the best. This album, more than the rest, can really capture a moment/emotion and sustain it through the entire segment of their song. Though lead singer Jordan may want his exes dead, this is undoubtedly the most romantic and lost-love-lust-driven lyrics in hardcore I've ever listened to, that wasn't complete wailing. Call that enough wanking.

There is much I'd like to say of their first album that is only realized when in contrast between the two LPs, and minds make this easiest when we are looking back, through Somewhere... into Vancouver (2006). First we can say it is perhaps the least produced of La Dispute's releases. Every song is just as incredibly poetic and instrumentally built as any one off Vega and Altair, I just feel they really matured as a band while making the second albums which shows through the more complete and closed feeling in those 13 tracks. Their first album, I think possesses the direction, feelings for the same woman maybe, but it all feels less refined. Their guitar riffs don't feel quite as wholesome, but this roughness adds to the emotional builds behind songs like See You In Vancouver and Fairmount. The track titled He Is Here He Is Not Afraid kills me--it may be the sickest track they've ever recorded. Once I missed them play in my hometown in Ontario, and I think ever since they remind me with this hollowing intro riff, and that piano in the Untitled track. Its so good, does anyone know if they ever confessed to composing or sampling it because it seems mad familiar.

See this post for the Koji split, titled Never Come Undone (2011). and get stoked for their new LP dropping this winter.