The Deluxe Edition adds a bonus disc with eight songs that were recorded at the same time as The Ugly Organ, but didn’t make it in the album. Instead they found homes on the Saddle Creek 50 compilation, their spilt single with Eastern Youth and the ‘Art Is Hard’ and ‘The Recluse’ singles.
Whereas 2000’s Domestica explored the intense pain of Tim Kasher‘s divorce, Ugly Organ is a tale of empty sex, overwrought melodrama, and metaphors of which the album’s title is only the first. Kasher likes making you feel queasy, and Cursive backs him up with unpredictable instrumental turns. “Butcher the Song” could be about a lot of things, but it’s definitely not happy, and its instrumentation lurches in stops and rushing starts like a drivetrain gone bad.
320 kbps | 177 MB UL | HF | MC ** FLAC
“Art Is Hard” is much louder. “Keep turning out those hits! Till it’s all the same old sh*t!” The clattering guitars shoot backward at Cursive’s louder roots, but the knifing lyrics stab wildly at fans, the band, the industry — any target available. Kasher and co. are similarly restless throughout Ugly Organ, and that sentiment makes the album both rewarding and frustrating. They’re capable of great beauty, particularly in the sure hand of cellist Gretta Cohn, who first appeared on the Burst & Bloom EP but is a true force here. She adds a soaring melody to “Driftwood: A Fairy Tale,” making it sound like Spoon with a fuller lineup.
1. The Ugly Organist [00:52]
2. Some Red-Handed Sleight of Hand [01:50]
3. Art Is Hard [02:44]
4. The Recluse [03:01]
5. Herald! Frankenstein [00:45]
6. Butcher the Song [03:29]
7. Driftwood: A Fairy Tale [04:38]
8. A Gentleman Caller [03:16]
9. Harold Weathervein [02:57]
10. Bloody Murderer [02:50]
11. Sierra [03:23]
12. Staying Alive [10:03]
13. Excerpts from Various Notes Strewn Around the Bedroom of April Connolly, Feb 24, 1997 [04:02]
14. Am I Not Yours? [03:23]
15. Escape Artist [03:09]
16. May Flowers [03:32]
17. Sinner’s Serenade [06:08]
18. Nonsense [02:46]
19. Once [02:01]
20. Adapt [04:05]