Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

This is my one hundredth post on this blog, and I'm glad I get to do it talking about something so good (Thanks to some site tinkering this is no longer post #100, but whatever).

Neutral Milk Hotel is a bit of an unfortunate story. Aeroplane is only their second full length recording. It is also their last. Despite strong critical acclaim, singer and guitarist Jeff Magnum left and hasn't done much since. But before he departed, they made one of the best albums of the 90's. His vocals and strumming guitar are prevalent throughout. His voice is pushed forward to be more noticeable in the production, which can be annoying in quieter moments, but overall seems like a positive choice. His lone guitar is the backbone of a lot of the album, but there's plenty of other sounds to be heard, with lots of crunching noise and horns flaring everywhere to create an effectively haunting yet entertaining atmosphere. The lyrics also add to this feeling. He sings about Anne Frank a lot, and his words shift between tender sadness and some disturbing or just odd thoughts. Overall, Neutral Milk Hotel creates a wholly unique sound with their music. They can be both very mellow and rock very hard, and the sheer amount of quality there is in less than 40 minutes of music is amazing.

The album starts with "The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1". Jeff plays his guitar, singing a nice melody and introducing his bizarre brand of words. An instrument I can't really identify comes in and changes the tone of the song, really starting to create the album's identity. Then Pts. 2 & 3 (one track) begin eccentrically before giving you the first taste of their louder, more chaotic side, with a trumpet (probably) keeping it focused. The title track is another strummed one with weird noises in the background keeping it cohesive in its oddness. "Two-Headed Boy" doesn't have those things, and is really just Jeff singing and playing his instrument. After a very brass-heavy interlude is "Holland, 1945" a very catchy song despite its subject matter. "Ghost" is very up-tempo, with a driving drum line that keeps it going until the massive collision of noise at the end. I always thought I liked bagpipes, but I never knew they could be awesome until I heard the untitled 10th track. It's an instrumental, but a great one. The last song is another nice, softer one to wind down from the loudness of the previous tracks. The flow of the album seems very good, and it all adds up to a great album that's better than the sum of its parts.