CMJ 2009 :: Golden Silvers, Mumford & Sons and The Temper Trap @ Music Hall of Williamsburg [10.22.09]

This review runs on Bowery's Houselist blog.

Temper Trap lead singer, Chris Mandagi beckoned the crowd to surge forward. The band was in the middle of an eight-song set at a nearly sold-out Music Hall of Williamsburg and things tilted with furious telemetry. It wouldn't be fair to say the set up to this point was pedestrian, but it certainly wasn't an elevating artistic moment. The band's much-licensed, smash-single, "Sweet Disposition" tipped the whole evening towards something different. So as Mandagi chanted the lyrics, he beckoned us forward.



An hour earlier, British folk-rock act Mumford and Sons dominated the same stage that Mandagi would later try to crush the crowd against. Rife with banjo, upright bass, and full-on four-part harmony, Mumford and Sons are the first band to ever move this many people without a drummer. The crowd knew the lyrics though the band would later joke that their album isn't out in the states yet. The implication is clear (you stole our album) but the accusation is invisible (still, thanks for singing along). They closed with a new song, "Whispers in the Dark," featuring the closing line, "let's live while we're still young." There isn't anything better to tell a room full of people who are mortgaging sleep and jobs for the sake of a music festival.



Slipped back in medias res and Temper Trap crushed their final four songs after "Sweet Disposition." Closing with "Science of Fear," Mandagi does his best vocal clown car, with a surprising amount of material coming out of a seemingly tiny vessel. As the song closed, he turned to his band and let the mike thud to the floor. The Temper Trap urged us forward and then retreated in kind. We were left to live while we were young. And that's what we did.

Temper Trap :: "Sweet Disposition" [Alan Wilkis Remix]

The Temper Trap album didn't quite deliver like we thought it might. Maybe the fall from grace started at SXSW 2009 when a series of A&Rs told us the band looked a huge future in the face and blinked. This was terrible timing. They were only a few months away from an enormous feature spot in a hugely disappointing summer movie, 500 Days of Summer. In fairness to the band, "Sweet Disposition" was a massive piece of arena-pop and it was used somewhat inappropriately in the film. At the critical moment, we needed to hear the band's erupting chorus, a series of half-statements, "won't stop 'til it's over/won't stop 'til we surrender." Instead, it was chopped-instrumentals and a few vague illusions. And when things don't turn out exactly like you expect, you can always fashion them back together like any number of discarded pieces. This is when we get a remix. This is when we try again.

Listen :: Temper Trap - "Sweet Disposition" [Alan Wilkis Remix]

Share :: "Penmanship"

Tonight, three of us went to see (500) Days Of Summer. Using pieces of High Fidelity for the elements of cultural name-checking and parts of Garden State for the sake of being needlessly precious (even in supposed unpreciousness) and gratuitously stylized, the movie actually holds on for most of its run time. In fact, it's good. And then the last scene happens. If you need to see it, see it. Like any artistic car-wreck, I understand. It's fascinating. But for a film that handles certain elements of relationships with relative care, the final scene is a categorical insult.

But the movie's best moments are the quiet ones. The moments that each relationship collects, wears smooth and keeps. These are the secrets, the meaningless minutiae. These are pretty and painful and over time, we become curators of a collective memory. And to be certain, after a relationship ends, it is this safety deposit box that is both hardest to open and hardest to throw away.

(500) Days handles these moments, and their crushing consequences, with incredible deftness. So I'll leave you with a song by Share about reading a girl's journal - it's got a little of Beck's Sea Change in it. It's about studying someones hand-writing. It's about distrust. It's about discovering nothing. If we can get mistaken for strangers by our own friends - just imagine what a significant other can do.

Listen :: Share - "Penmanship"