[music] ADD - Divider Why Are You Doing This? (actdead.com)

Download the full album for free here.

This album's third track, "Let It All Burn", absolutely KILLS. It sounds like The Postal Service remixing My Dad Is Dead, and if you don't know My Dad Is Dead, I think MDID singer Mark Edwards is giving away most of his music for free too. (I was never the biggest fan, so I can't tell you where to start, but go to mydadisdead.com.)

The title song is addressed to George Bush, as I think are some of the others. Fal's indignation may sound wimpy, but for me it conjures up images of an action hero, sixty seconds before from the plot twist that will save his or her life, asking the supervillain a pointless question. "Why are you doing this?" The answer is never informative, but asking the question is a token of the hero's goodness, showing the pilot-light of doubt that underlies the healthy variety of moral certainty. If you look for politics these songs are political, but Fal never sounds angry, just betrayed. He really believes George Bush could have done better, and that's not a point in Bush's favor-- it's the final strike against him.

Unless, as I said about American Music Club's similar album, I'm allowing the charming obliqueness of the lyrics to make me overstate the amount that Jeff Fal agrees with me.

Sadly, I've recommended "Let It All Burn" to a lot of people already (along with "Flagwaving" and "Divider", the best other songs) and as far as I know, nobody has found it nearly as compelling as I do. It could be the bedroom production or Jeff Fal's voice, or just a matter of taste. I don't begrudge people their opinions; I just, I suppose, cling to the illusion that much of the music I love would be widely listened to were the practical and financial barriers to finding and hearing it close to zero. Not so.