Assorted Works: The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die: Review
is a Connecticut based indie rock project that has gone through a number of line-ups and stylistic approaches throughout this decade. After three positively received records across this decade, the band saw fit to release a collection of unreleased material and B-Sides during the long break between records they've been on.
Review By Lavender:
I have always been a fan of The World Is A Beautiful Place since I heard their first record Whenever, If Ever. I also enjoyed their most recent album Always Foreign in 2017, so I was excited to hear a lot of these songs. Despite my enjoyment of the bands work I did go into this record with my expectations low. B-Sides collections are typically randomly collected collages of tunes often left on the cutting room floor for other records and with not much care to their order or arrangement. Despite this I think there are a lot of pretty solid tracks that help prove how fantastic the creativity of the group is.
I think that the record is assembled in some kind of chronological order as many of the more emo inspired songs appear in the first half here, and the songs that follow the bands expanding career arc come in the excellent second half of the album. I Will Be Ok. Everything, is a pretty great start that I quite enjoy, and Bread For Brett sounds like a solid Neck Deep tune. I enjoy it not just because there is a not insignificant chance it may be named after me.
This early portion also features some moments I didn't love quite as much, starting with some long and wandering tunes in Mega Steve and To Miss Catherine. This is where I should go over a number of the records other more forgettable moments. To The Janitor, To The Kind is an acoustic tune that doesn't really get rolling at any point and seems to end completely out of nowhere. Be Neon With Me is a short and explosive punk tune that I like in concept but one that needs a bit more work. Fat Heaven is a low-fi noise song but not one that would ever really stand out outside of this context. Thankfully most of the tracks here that I don't love are just boring, and not bad.
There are a number of tracks on here that I genuinely really enjoyed starting with A Note From The Author February 1st To The Author January 1st. Despite the obviously raw title this song is an absolutely fantastic spoken word track that depicts the ethos of small town punk music so much better than most actual punk tunes. Who is actually delivering the spoken word verses I haven't been able to definitively confirm but whoever it may be they deliver the words with a snarling tone or bitter resentment and revel in the absolute desolation of small town life. The song is an emotional peak that I won't be forgetting anytime soon. We Carry Knives is a genuinely haunting and excellent post rock tune that I really enjoy, and further proof of the bands sharp versatility. From The Crow's Next On Fire Street us an excellent tune that evokes some serious emotional potency from a fantastic lead vocal performance and a pretty dramatic and swelling instrumental.
Even More Forever has some great lyrics delivered over a wandering key line that makes the track feel like the delivery of some gorgeous poetry. Chest & Shirt and Smoke & Felt are a companion pair of tracks that come in towards the back end of the record, the former of the two being the better track. It has a pretty great stop and start vocal passage but the flood of supporting instrumentation is what really drives it home.
Assorted Works is better than your average collection of, well, assorted works. For fans of The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die there are plenty of fantastic tracks here well worth hearing, and even for people casually interested in the band, there are some excellent tracks on this compilation that will both add to the bands repertoire of good songs, and provide some sounds and sonic approaches they have yet to take on a proper studio release. Assorted Works was far from the difficult listen that some of these kinds of records can be.
