The Wrens

for the record, i've heard a few songs by the wrens (you know, i still have a kinda sucky but oddly comforting release of theirs called 'silver' that i bought used for dirt cheap and haven't listened to in a long time!), i was listening to different records then, but i thought they had a few nice, if relatively unremarkable, indie rock songs. i actually downloaded something from this new cd and found it lousy, maybe i've just gotten too lazy a listener to dig for hooks. and disco hi-hats couldn't hurt.

I hear ya, I know what you mean. This is very true.

I think in this case it is a virtue because the sound, method, whatever, suits the band even if the record does sound dated. They haven't changed too much with the times, but I think it works, and their stubbornness (as I imagine it) is a plus. It has a lot of personality.

Though it should technically matter little, the Wrens are possibly the nicest group of people you'll ever met.

But, yeah, Grass. When booking a Wrens show back in 96, that Fuckwad Boss, forced the addition of Commander Venus (his newest signing) to the bill. The little band of 14-15 year olds was fronted by a pathetic, pubescent Bright Eyes. Now THEY were terrible.

i guess i don't care about "passionate rock music." ha ha ha, etc.

That's how I feel about the Shins. But I love the Wrens' record. And I can't explain why...

Yeah, me too and I didn't want to like them because pitchfork was all up on them, but after further listenings I came to love Meadowlands. Secaucus doesn't do much for me though.

By the way, as long as this is The Wrens thread, has anyone else read Meadowlands reviews with the words 'emo' included? I thought this was a little ridiculous. I mean then what isn't emo?

Also I have little knowledge of Grass as a mid 90s label, but I would think It'd be much easier to rip them for being on Drive-Thru for a minute.

ha ha. this was exactly my thought when I listened to the record. It's pretty good - and it's also definitely emo. Nothing wrong with that per se, but I was extremely perplexed that I hadn't seen any review refer to it as such - like you say. i guess most of the indie review places have worked so hard at slagging and distancing themselves from emo (trashing bands solely on the basis of their genre), that they can't conceive of an emo record that they like. what a sad place to be.

Maybe I'm one of the billion trillion people who aren't quite sure on what emo is.

Seriously. When is everyone going to start using the term 'post-emo' - its about time. Certainly theres a lot of stuff that has been influenced by it, but it just doesn't fit to really call anything emo anymore unless it is used as an insult.

Power pop I say. Sounds like indie rock update on Big Star/Flamin' Groovies.

And if it didn't have the 6 minute long turd that seems like it lasts 13 months it'd be near-perfect.

I just wish I could find the old CDs.

File under: Perfect Sound? Whatever.

Upon relistening, The Meadowlands really is a pretty devastating record. I'm really hoping these guys can keep it together long enough to make another record.

How the fuck has this thread gone all this time with no mention of "Everyone Choose Sides"? Agreed that devastating is as good a word as any for this.

Everybody on the planet should see these boys/middle aged men live too.

I only like the distorted songs at the end of this album.

For a lol indie band I like these guys a lot. And I fucked up and missed them at the Adelphi.

i really like the song 'Happy' but the rest bores me

Saw them at the borderline in london a couple of years ago; was one of the best live shows I've ever seen. Still not tired of the Meadowlands.

i throw "the meadowlands" on a few times a year and it still sounds totally sad and real and close to the bone. saw them live in 2003? 2004? and they were totally excellent and very funny.

Boy did I forget about the Wrens. I mean, I clicked on this thread thinking, "never heard of this band", and read like five posts before I realized I once owned The Meadowlands. I must have sold it or something because I no longer have it and it clearly didn't leave an impression on me...considering giving them another shot...

I take The Meadowlands off the shelf, listen to "Happy" and "She Sends Kisses," and put it back. But damn am I satisfied.

There are a lot of bands where the bio seems beside the point, but I know the Wrens' backstory makes the band mean more to me. My introduction to them was this still inspirationalTimes article that I can't separate from what's on The Meadowlands. Everyone Choose Sides and This Boy Is Exhausted put their daily struggle front and center, which makes all the relationship songs feel epic because you know what it took them to get to the point of being able to tell their tale. The Wrens = hope for all middle-aged rockers.

The Meadowlands is: totally fantastic, totally emo, totally not indie-pop. The beginning of this thread is: totally hilarious.

i still haven't heard Secaucus...
i liked meadowlands fine (it did seem a tad over-hyped at the time) and i'll pull it out every six months or so.

saw em live last year in Philly in the basement of a church(?) and they were pretty fuggin great

I didn't get Wrens - that Meadowlands was overrrated - i cheated it in the wrong sequence - then i saw them (THE WRENS) live.
Oh man. The reasons I love music

Noodle Vague.

Next time Jacko does one hold a Vague banner.

I'm ashamed at the number of "though it was overrated"s in this thread

Don't be ashamed ^ we all got there in the end but maybe not as quickly as you. Well Done

Are we not liking this record now? For crying out loud, what the hell is there not to like? It's on the shortlist of best records of the 2000s, people! Geez louise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ten tons against me and you've gone
I put your favorite records on
and sit around
it spins around
and you're around again
struck dumb while drugs run at how high reeds
cue every memory at half-speeds
just like....charles, hold-me-downs
I'm-coming sounds
cut crap, who's filling shoes like these anymore?
past clumsy crushes beneath Thrill Pier
hopes pinned to poses honed in men's room mirrors
a sophomore at Brown
she worked Lost & Found
I put your face on her all year
from five rows of photos when you wrote
of posed you, dressed blue, a backyard boat
signed at the bottom with this quote:
(#4 North Shore) a cape may address
your new one I guess
'all's well in hell and all here's hoping'
she sends kisses
some signed 'with Love, Beth oooooo xxxxx'
she sends kisses
our oldest joke
some signed 3 sixes
our shore town knockdown sure was fun
yeah, white trash, what have you
I fired replies back gun by gun
past Seven Wrecks I read your four answers: 1. your move 2. I'm tres involved 3. move on 4. love, Beth
I walk it down
this tourist town
'just thought I'd' calls
just friends
she sends kisses
and all at once back doors blow open
she sends.... in envelopes stamped w/ 'Hope & Hearts' - ripped right open
she sends...
but I'm corrupt - I wrote back good luck

from the above lyrics, the following line stands out for me as incredible:

"hopes pinned to poses honed in men's room mirrors"

such a great observation, expressed with a great deal of poetic poise.

I still don't get it.

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/the-wrens-meadowlands-round-14-toms-selection/

At what point does its brilliance reveal itself?

lol holy shit these versions are rough sure but it is basically the album

ok sub pop/the rest of the band really should have just insisted on bringing in a producer to sift through all of this and give charles some perspective because this is brilliant even if the mixes are really rough

should have just insisted on bringing in a producer

maybe kevin shields?

i'm pretty sure bissell has already spent more time going mad over these songs than shields did with m b v

certainly looking forward to his solo album for the finished versions of most of these tracks & more but it's absolutely tragic it's never coming out in this form. the the versions of some of kevin's songs here are better than the versions on the aeon station album

but still holy shit!!! the 4th wrens album, which i thought we'd never hear, is fantastic and totally lives up to expectations even in this slightly rough form.

is this how people who liked m b v felt

Haha can you share? Soulseek producing zero results

if you search for 'wrens album 4.5 demo' you should be able to find it on soulseek

this is the tracklist:

Intro
Dog End June Twice Measured
Old Death
Leaves
In Pairs to the Palestra
Face Facts
Maille Singing Old Death The G
Crescent
As Ive Known
Haiti
Three Types of Reading Ambigui
Sophie
Gregs Ballad
And Its All Guns & Arrows
January Piano
Its The Whole Thing, Its The
December Sleep
White Fem Age 61

some of the track titles were cut off and idk what they're all supposed to be. "Its The Whole Thing, Its The" is known to be actually titled "At Irish Exit". it's "Three Types of Reading Ambiguity" obviously. "Leaves" was on the Aeon Station album almost unchanged, along with "Face Facts" (retitled "Air") and "Haiti" (retitled "Empty Rooms"). "Sophie" was re-recorded as "Queens".

OK yeah it popped up... weird that "wrens 4.5" didn't work but that did

i can't wait to hear how charles has ship-of-theseused all these songs in the decade since (if these versions really are from 2014) as well as the new songs that are going to be on it. i hope they're also all 7 minutes long and have these sort of ambitious ideas

I was one of the people that went to his house and listened to cuts in his lil studio room years back, where he personally told us that he was going to submit it to the label and it would be out within 6 months from there or whatever, then I came back here and was like “I think it’s really happening guys”... anyway these sound familiar and I wonder how different they are from the samples we heard or if they’re the same more or less, it’s hard to remember. Can’t imagine anything he’d have landed on anything relatively minimal or simplistic after all this.

Yup, it was 2017. Sigh.

there are two versions of "three types of reading ambiguity" that he previously released in 2015 and they're both relatively close to this, though one is two minutes longer and the other is a minute longer. both have a bunch of kalimba overdubs that aren't on this one at the very least. the final version is going to have kevin's bridge cut out though (it's "hold on" on the aeon station album) and i think he mentioned scrapping some of the verses at some point? he also released an instrumental of "at irish exit" in 2016 and he's clearly swapped a lot of the guitar parts there compared to this one. there were other fragments of songs that he posted on soundcloud after bits and pieces got cut from the album (a scrapped bridge from "and it's all guns & arrows" among other things) but i can't track those down now.

also worth comparing the "crescent"/"as i've known" here to the version from 2010/2011 - he's added a ton of overdubs since then, including some great new parts, but it's also so much denser

ufo thanks for all this including the insight - but I gotta know - where did the leak come from and how do you know it was the version as of 2014 specifically?

i don't have much insight at all! i saw it mentioned on hipinion (lol) and found it on soulseek but idk where it came from or whether it really is a 2014-era version of the album (that's just what someone claimed there). the tags do say 2014 and that would seem to make sense with the other versions of some of these songs we've heard but that's very hard to say with any real certainty or anything

charles posted about his mental health over the past years ahead of the big album announcement happening tomorrow/friday

https://www.wrens.com/news-etc/2023/10/5/the-mh-post

very glad to hear he's doing better these days

https://www.carcolors.net/news/happyannounceday

charles walked away from his sub pop deal to revive absolutely kosher, and is also doing nfts of alt versions of tracks because he's somehow still excited by them

... of course that's how this would end up

but at least the album is on its way at last

Very sad the band couldn’t come to terms on a 20th anniversary Meadowlands reissue.

the final "old death" is pretty great except the drums are mixed real weird, they're buried beneath everything else. it totally realises the ambition of the leaked version otherwise, though there are a bunch of structural changes. it's fascinating how different it is, sounds pretty much totally re-recorded. such a shame this isn't the triumphant comeback single of the wrens because it really is a triumph

the alt. version of "and it's all guns and arrows" is lovely too, way better than the leaked version. you can really get a sense of how much time he's spent obsessing over the arrangements if he has alternate versions like this lying around lol, it's quite different to the early version and i wonder what it'll sound like on the album.

"i'll bear" rules too, and that's a track that didn't make the album!

car colors is such a bad band name though, idk if that or aeon station is worse lol

congratulations to charles for finally releasing some stuff https://carcolors.bandcamp.com/album/old-death

should also add https://www.carcolors.net/news/old-death-released-unto-the-hideous-world

here's the three songs, they're very good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X832hhLW-s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbUtB-MFNk8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Rq3wHp7p4

"old death" is so fucking good. i really missed charles's voice

does anyone have a non soulseek link to the 2014 demos?

i think i've figured out that the source of the 'album 4.5 demo' is a cd-r charles sent to sub pop in 2015 that was supposed to be an unmastered version of the final album

still blown away by "old death" and incredibly looking forward to the car colors album which charles is still promising is being announced soon (apparently the latest delay is due to issues with vinyl production, of course). i really can't wait to hear the final version of "in pairs to the palestra" since that's one of his very best tunes

loving Old Death and I'll Bear. Only gave them a cursory listen last Nov, but listening to them non-stop now.

yeah i absolutely love old death and think it's one of the best songs he's ever written.

if the demos are anything to judge it by the album should be an utter classic when it eventually comes out