...is "Songs of God and Whiskey"

Artist: The Airborne Toxic Event
Genre: Alternative/Indie
2015

This album is pure guava. It bursts with emotion and makes you cry about breakups you never had. You want to dance a little jig and eat comida mexicana when you hear a mariachi-esque band accompany them on track 2. I don't know what it is about this band, but they make me nostalgic about stuff that I've never flippin experienced. How the snack is that even possible

Every other line makes you stop and think "k now hold up- what the what did he just say and why do I feel it seep into my very bones??" TATE's (The Airborne Toxic Event) biggest forte is their song writing. Singer/songwriter Mikel Jollett has a magical sabbatical way with words and prose.  I've rarely heard such good literary combination of hyperbole, metaphor, yelling, and the occasional swear word.

Here's an excerpt from the first song, "Poor Isaac," in reference to Abraham being asked to sacrifice his song Isaac as a trial of his faith from the bible.

...Though I'm not quite sure if poor Isaac would agree.
"My God," he said "What did I do
To make you wanna watch me bleed?"
And I feel sick tonight, I feel just like
The dancing flame on a funeral light
And I'm not sure if I want you to save me
And I'd be less uptight if I knew the sight
Of blood was just a weakness
And not the whole reason that you made me...

But sometimes I think it is.

I think my favorite line in the song is when he says

And I'm so pissed tonight, I feel just like
The last remainin' Canaanite

I mean who comes up with that?? And BOOM just like that you feel all sorts of anger and revenge and injustice, etc. The album title "Songs of God and Whiskey," is a very apt description.

My one beef with this record is they have a song called "California." I generally dislike all songs about California. To me, the state you live in is what you write about what you can't think of anything else to write about. Like, really? It's a state. We ALL live in states. So many bands do it and what's so great about California anyway???

This record proves that The Airborne Toxic Event still got it. Their first two albums blew my mind. I fell in love with them and even spent over twenty bucks to buy their concert DVD (which is amazing bytheway go buy it rn). 3rd record? It's aight. 4th? Piece of junk. Total sellouts. It was a colossal shift in genre, tone, writing, instrumentation, everything. It feels so processed that if you listen close enough, you can actually hear the record label producers telling the band to get rid of their acoustic guitars and violin and to crank the synth and drum machine up 9db.

Listening to "Songs of God and Whiskey" restored my faith in mankind. TATE went back and watered their roots and a beautiful pretty apple tree grew and now we get to eat the apples and cry about heartache, God and whiskey. Give it a whirl, and focus on the words.