Throw Me The Statue

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Mar 13, 2010

Suddenly Lighter, Suddenly Happier In Blues

Words by Sean Moeller, Illustration by Johnnie Cluney, Sound engineering by Mike Gentry

All of the snow that's still on the ground around here is in a condition that I imagine the snow where Scott Reitherman, Aaron Goldman, Jarred Grimes and Charlie Smith of Seattle band Throw Me The Statue is in as well. It's gone through a number of weeks of temperamental and fluctuating temperatures, ones that are having a tough time busting out of their stagnancy of just being bitter, bitter, bitter now for months on end. There's a rebooting going on with the weather and it's always a drawn out process. There have been warmer days than others, but none too bright and beautiful yet. The snows get mushy and drippy here when we find ways above the freezing mark. Though our cheeks will still get cold and pink with a prolonged outdoor experience on days like those, it's at least getting closer to tolerable and closer to springtime. So the snows have been fucked with, softened and then hardened back up in the overnight hours. They sit now, on gray-ish green lawns just screaming ugly thoughts, and they've taken on a brittle consistency of unforgiving reluctance or impatience, as if seeing the real turn in conditions will be believing, even though that spells their rapid demise. These kinds of linger and disfigured snowfalls, lying pitifully unable to be enjoyed and essentially dead matter affect the psyche of lead singer Reitherman. They really must. He sings about snow occasionally on the band's latest record - "Creaturesque" - and it sounds as if there's love in his voice, an appreciation in its purity and the way it rests heavy on the boughs of pine trees and more, when it's new to the atmosphere. It's an untainted dressing over top of all the grime and crud that we let exist around our parts the rest of the year, over those other three seasons. Those Pacific Northwest rains - though frequent - are cleansing and it must feel good when they come. The same could be said about the concealment that the white snows make on the grounds that have been roughed up and desecrated the other eight months out of the year. It's an appealing consideration - this washing away and this method of erasing a little. Reitherman writes these appealing storylines that find our unsung heroes trying to come to grips with their own stagnancy and their own brokenheartedness in the best ways they know how. This tends to always include much verbosity and strenuous thinking, these wispy melodies that they think in and soft, subtle movements that feel and sound delightfully sad. When Reitherman sings on "Ancestors," "Can a year have a bottomless grudge/You will find your way back up from the fall down/Samuel, what came undone?/You were always the funniest one/You will find you've got the guts for the fall down," it's like getting a Charlie horse and then getting the greatest kiss or hug from your dearest friend and a slight whisper into the ear, "Everything's going to be alright. I love you." And then it's felt. It suddenly feels lighter.

Throw Me The Statue Official Site
Throw Me The Statue's Debut Daytrotter Session
Secretly Canadian Records

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