Being Dead / EELS
Album: EELS   Collection:A-File
Artist:Being Dead   Added:Oct 2024
Label:Bayonet Records  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2024-10-19 Pull Date: 2025-01-18
Week Ending: Dec 8 Dec 1 Nov 24 Nov 17 Nov 10 Nov 3 Oct 27
Airplays: 1 1 2 3 2 2 3

Recent Airplay
1. Dec 05, 2024: elemenohps & qs
Love Machine
4. Nov 19, 2024: Phone Scam
Godzilla Rises
2. Nov 30, 2024: Buford J. Sharkley Presents: As Told to Hervey Okkles
Rock N' Roll Hurts
5. Nov 16, 2024: where's my snail?
Firefighters
3. Nov 21, 2024: Comes to Mind
Big Bovine
6. Nov 14, 2024: Oh Messy Life
Blanket of My Bone

Album Review
Wallace Brontoon
Reviewed 2024-10-19
Fantastic weirdo-freak jangly sugar-pop rock goofy twee catchy catchy catchy stuff out of Austin; Being Dead is a duo, Falcon Bitch and Shmoofy (co-ed), who (with help from their occasional third member, bassist Nicole) creates weird soundscapes that sound like a whole deranged army… every song is very much its own thing, intricate, rich arrangements with so many vocal timbres; FCC clean… play anything, but some are nichier short pieces that fit into larger suites;

RIYL everything from post-punk to post-punk influences (grass widow), to fuzzy garage rock, to twee stuff… hard to say, it’s a weird stew that’s hard to pin down

1. (2:47) ****** Nice driving intro, singalong back-and-forth male/female vox, a love song to Godzilla… sweet and tender and jangly and rocking and weird, great hooks; glassy torch song vox at end, wild stuff
2. (3:33) ***** Spoken-word intro, into slightly mathy chant-y rock beat, monotone about office line drone, with spacier/kookier chorus; ends on a “Van Gogh” soft stinger
3. (3:13) **** Rocking, insistent intro, keeps on this mode until a spacier, bliss-y, slow chorus; your head in the clouds, kinda early 2010s-nostalgia psyche
4. (3:41) ****** Minor-key mid-tempo strumming into doom-y psyche-y chanting…. resolves a minute in into sunshiney hippie bliss, syruppy weekend bliss; then back into nightmare neurotic doom about “PROBLEMS”
5. (4:30) ******* Fast fuzzy rockin beat… spooky angular vox and sounds; very Grass Widow, keeps at its sugar-high spooky drive, tambourine resolution with a minute left… slows down and chills out, slow ending
6. (2:00) *** medieval-influenced folk little tune, sour male vox into sweet fem vox
7. (2:55) ***** nearly a capella opening, haunting and simple; into straightforward rock groove, snarly vox, with occasionally glitch-tune accompaniment; great hooks (sorta-near-fcc: “bitch”, fwiw)
8. (2:17) ** Spacey noodly guitar and whatever in slow groove for a while, ghost-y warbly vox eventually join; pretty minor
9. (2:49) ***** insistent math-y keyboard-driven beat, spooky vox, cuts into chorus which is goofier and slow and foot-stomping, into bizarre cowboy-inflected little song, then back and forth; weird stuff
10. (0:33) ** Short, sweet synthy glitchy little instrumental
11. (1:49) **** Fast, funky mathy squeaky dance (??) song, cartoony; really hooky though; weirdly ends with the same cowboy refrain as #9, heh
12. (2:08) ***** noodly intro with some weird computer sfx, into a doo-woppy little sweet song about “rock and roll hurts”, with some weird noise… cuts into them breaking up and laughing while singing, infectious; sudden ending
13. (2:03) ***** jangly fast wistful start-stop, gets all tangled up, great hooks
14. (1:00) **** very short, but beautiful little bedroom fem vox pop ballad, muffled to hell, pretty
15. (3:36) ***** stompy folk-pop intro, call-and-response ballad, glassy sweet fem vox add real buoyancy; chorus nightmarish, breaking into waves of sunshiney reassurance; eventual grand conflict into pure radiance
16. (0:46) * small little MIDI tune, lol

Track Listing
1. Godzilla Rises (2:47)   9. Big Bovine (2:49)
2. Van Goes (3:33)   10. Storybook Bay (0:33)
3. Blanket of My Bone (3:13)   11. Ballerina (1:49)
4. Problems (3:41)   12. Rock N' Roll Hurts (2:08)
5. Firefighters (4:30)   13. Love Machine (2:03)
6. Dragons Ii (2:00)   14. I Was a Tunnel (1:00)
7. Nightvison (2:55)   15. Goodnight (3:36)
8. Gazing at Footwear (2:17)   16. Lilypad Lane (0:46)