Titan Moon, Postcard Republic

by Heather Tylock

I am a child of the Depression. I was reborn at a Son Volt concert, and later took Rhett Miller into my heart as my personal savior. I have taken communion under the alter of the Jayhawks, and was baptized by the sisters of September 67.

In a time when 'Depression Rock' has become 'Alt-Country' and our 'brightest' artists are products of an industry and a society where hope has been abandoned for profit, it is hard to find salvation of any kind. But in deed, salvation is possible, and celebration of its rebirth can be found in an album conceived on a ranch in the middle of the Mexican wilderness.

Postcard Republic is a six-song salutation to life, love, and loss. Titan Moon's Nate Schneidewent and Tyler Casey use their voices as instruments, accompanied by a flawless symphony of strings and percussion, that projects a clarifying sense of emotion. There's no whining and no screaming, only an overwhelming sense of truth.

The songs are an amalgamation of sorts. They recall the symphonic odes of the October Project, the hope of the Jayhawks, the sorrow of Jay Farrar, and the twangy quirks lovingly displayed by the Incontinentals.

The set starts off with "Postcard", a ballad of sorts, where the pilgrim searches for deliverance, not sure of its purveyor. The crescendo of the album moves through "Ryan's Song", a devotion to experience and its appreciation, into the apex of "Everytime." Here, Titan Moon violins the soul, bringing the strings of lost loves to the surface. In "She Ya," there is a combination of an almost primal drum with the sublime of the bluegrass base as a front to the nonsensicality of the lyrics. We then move into another dreamy ballad, before rounding off with "You Go Away," where we are struck with an infinite sense of change.

The entire album is a reflection of the transitory nature of life and our dependence as humans on a stability that does not in fact exist. And while it painfully reminds us of the transition, it also shows us that change itself can be seen as a stabling factor, because change is the only constant.

Fact is, these boys from Wisconsin have done something that no other recording artists have been able to do for quite sometime. Which is restore my faith in the creation of musical art. Titan Moon's Postcard Republic is well worth the listen.

{www.titanmoon.com}

Issue 12, January 2003 | next article