Joan of Arc - Boo Human (2008)

First on the docket is the new Joan of Arc album. In lieu of a little write up which is what will usually accompany these posts, Im going to just put up a review on it that I wrote for my old job that was never published:

"As someone who has grown up with having Chicago’s Kinsella brothers around in a musical version of parents relying on their television sets to raise their kids (granted, I was already in my awkward teens by the time I came across Joan of Arc, but I like to believe that metaphor still stands), I’ve committed a great deal of time (and, for that matter, great acts) listening to the incestuous and ever-expanding tree of Kinsella bands (Joan of Arc, Owen, Cap’n Jazz, Make Believe, American Football, Owls, et all). I would have to say that, as a whole, it’s the Joan of Arc discography that I could do without. Perhaps it’s the sheer amount of albums by Joan of Arc compared to the rather limited and sometimes meagre collections released under different branches (Owls, for example, have only released one album, yet it is most certain that this is my favourite record bearing the Kinsella brand), or maybe it’s just in the areas where Joan of Arc deviates from what is generally expected from these bands that sometimes creates this friction with myself. With all of that said, let it be known that Boo! Human makes me rethink this stance.

As with any album featuring a Kinsella, Boo! Human reaches its best points during the dizzying, disjointing and rubbery guitar work that has become sort of the staple Kinsella sound. It is, in a way, a Universal Truth that first culminated in Cap’n Jazz and has just sort have stuck around through the other bands in the way that heroes always seem to have a certain favouring of the gods. It’s not necessarily as aggressive as Make Believe, as clear-cut and dreamy as Owls, or even as sentimental and swoony as Owen, but the guitar work on Boo! Human maintains the Tim Kinsella sound, while still, after nearing twenty years (it’s been that long already?!) sounding fresh.

It is, in comparison, a gentler side of Joan of Arc. The experimentation that has made albums like Joan of Arc, Dick Cheney, Mark Twain more difficult to absorb has been somewhat relinquished for a more organic and caring sound similar to So Much Staying Alive and Lovelessness or Eventually, All At Once. At times it can still be quite stark, but never for too long as it always, in a roundabout way, comes across in that sort of comfortable and controlled way like when an old friend does or says something that is so like their nature, that all you can do is smile warmly.

It doesn’t take an analytical genius to get the impression that this is going to be a very important album, if not, perhaps the most, for the band. After a decade and a dozen albums, Boo! Human shows the experienced gained through all this time, but executes the sum of all those cultivated parts with enough youthful exuberance to keep the album sounding fresher than any of the band’s previous albums."

Joan Of Arc - Boo Human (2008)
Chicago, Ill
http://www.myspace.com/joanofarcpvjtrec