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Green Pajamas, Box of Secrets: Northern Gothic 2

reviewed by hiram lucke

I would like to formally apologize to The Green Pajamas for a couple of reasons. First, I’ve heard several songs by the band over their 20 plus year history and I’ve always liked every song I’ve heard, but somehow when it comes to buying albums, The Green Pajamas slip into the cloudy portion of my mind only to come forward when I see their name again. Second, I’ve always thought they were from the UK, not Seattle. I know, I know—I’m a fairly horrible music fan. No, I’ll agree. So, with the foot I’ve now placed firmly on the ground, I vow to pay attention to The Green Pajamas from now on.

Oh, but you should care. If you’re a fan of The Green Pajamas already, then you should know that this album is more rock than most, sometimes sounding like the kind of album Tom Petty would make if he didn’t have obligations to record labels (that’s a good thing). For those who haven’t heard the band, The Green Pajamas make the kind of structurally sound, lyrically literary, and just plain beautiful pop music that’s a pop classicist’s wet dream: a little bit of a guitar line from Fleetwood Mac starts “Until the Daylight,” the broken-hearted wooziness of Richard and Linda Thompson’s best work moves in and out of the album’s lyrics, the roots rock propensities of The Rain Parade stagger in, and there’s also just a touch of The Kinks and The Go-Betweens. It’s all here and it’s all very familiar to the ears, but retains an individuality that sometimes gets lost in other bands.

On Box of Secrets: Northern Gothic 2, the stories revolve around the Washington coast’s misty woods and cold ocean shores. Opener “Katie’s Gone” centers on a cold morning walk along the beach, “in a rolling mist, can’t see the water but I hear the hiss” and ruminations of first kisses in the ocean. We find out that Katie, the lover with the “face of sunburned grace” has left and, like the narrator in the song “Katie’s Been Gone” from The Band/Dylan, this person is waiting for a return, stuck in the past and stasis. This narrator, however, is not waiting for the lost love’s return, but is instead debating whether or not he should leave the small town on the coast. You get the feeling he never will. The theme of being haunted by old loves while being unable to move on is a major theme throughout the record, haunted being the key word. The album is full of witches, demons, and ghosts. “When Abigail was 17” tells the story of a young boy who watches as his love is hung for being a witch/headstrong young girl, and doesn’t understand why no one harms him. “La Diabla” laments the emotional hardening and rage of a woman as she grows old, “driving you to pray that you see the sun another day” using a sailors on a stormy sea as the conceit. The closing track “Into the Woods” sees the return of Abigail as a voice asks Abigail to “fly us… safe to the shore”.

So, don’t pass up another album by The Green Pajamas if you’ve never heard them. Go ahead and take the pledge with me and pay attention from now on. And if you have heard them, this is one you won’t want to pass up.

{www.parasol.com/labels/hiddenagenda}


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