Candy Bars, "On Cutting Tigers In Half And Understanding Narravation"

This weekend, Vintage Vinyl is having a buy 2, get 1 free sale on our $3.99 used compact discs.

To celebrate, we'll be skimming the bins and posting about some of the gems to be found.

We have here Candy Bars' On Cutting Tigers In Half And Understanding Narravation released in 2006.

On Coke Machine Glow, Amir Nezar said:

Candy Bars are genuinely gripping, deserving of the double honor of both analytical critical praise and sheer visceral fandom. The group wields indelible technical and emotional power with restraint and wisdom, melding concise pop sensibilities with deft instrumentation, developing personal ghosts and haunted pasts into surreal musical swoons.

A great deal of the group's mesmerizing atmosphere has to do with Daniel Martinez's vocals and lyrics. His heavily-treated voice -- often multitracked -- bleeds into the mix with spectral presence, offsetting the clear delicacy of keys, shuffling drums, cello, and guitars (electric and acoustic) with a tattered beauty and darkly metaphorical lyrical shades. His delivery, over a majestic electric guitar chorus in "Violets," is spine-shaking as he rasps, "I woke up screaming / Pajamas wet with ex-girlfriend / Forced to flee from the chill which she lives in." Frequently, his abstract musings metamorphose into pure poetry; in the gorgeous, muted stomp of "The Flood in your Old Town," he sings with distanced longing, "But the ants will ride / On fallen leaves / like boats / through city streets / and passengers will turn their backs / when you say 'I love you.'" After his melody takes a dour turn, he wryly concludes, "But holding on / to someone's arm / is going to be / the fall of the / twenty-first century / because you are all liars."