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The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

The Life and Times love you like no one else, with new album

When I last listened to The Life and Times, the bass drum destroyed my eardrums. That’s what I get for standing in the front row at Beat Kitchen.

It was my fourth time seeing them live (this is a testament to how fantastic their shows are) and the first time I heard they had a new record coming out, roughly a month later.

“No One Loves You Like I Do,” released Jan. 17, is a ten-track trip through noisy, hazy heaven.

You could say love is the theme, but, realistically, suffering plays into this as well.

I have to wonder how much heartache the trio has gone through to write so many songs about the tragedies of love, especially since I noticed a ring on lead singer Allen Epley’s left hand. I’m not one to speculate on the inner workings of anyone’s marriage or love life, so I’m going to stop this thought now.

Regardless of how fictional the songs are, or whether or not you can relate, “No One Loves You Like I Do” is another gem of a record by the Southern natives.

You hear shouts, almost pleads of “I love you,” “I still love you” and “I will love you” peppered through the tracks, most notably in “Day One.”

The sense of creepy possessive affection felt throughout the album is not far from their previous work.

“My Last Hostage,” the single off Suburban Hymns (2005) is a good example: “Pretty souvenir to keep through all the years/I covet you/It’s coming true/So don’t beg for your life; it’s shining through your eyes/And I’m in the mood/And I love you/Just lay down your head ’cause you’re my lost hostage/Please don’t move ’cause I love you.”

The tracks are numbered days, but placed out of numerical order.

The album opens with “Day Six,” a powerful melancholic avenue to “Day Nine,” a bassier track.

“Day One” (track three, sorry if this is confusing,) as I mentioned above, is a love-laden song with a good, but mildly uncomfortable video, which premiered Jan. 5.

It’s one of those, “wait a second, this doesn’t feel right …” kind of videos, featuring a relationship in slow motion.

“Day Five” crescendos slowly, then peaks at an ambient fizz and drops off. The energy is picked back up in “Day Three.”

“Day Eleven” (track six, are you keeping up?) is one of my favorites on this album, mainly for the drum beat and vocal harmonies.

“Day Ten” is probably the noisiest song, it’ll turn you into a shoegazer momentarily—whether you want to be or not.

The next track, “Day Two,” starts with a synth progression similar to “Old Souls” on “Tragic Boogie.”

“Day Twelve” (the last day, but second to last track) has this—I hate to say it, but I can’t come up with a more accurate comparison—90’s alternative thing to it, in a good way.

“Day Eight,” the final track, seems to be the turning point in the story if it were arranged chronologically.

“No One Loves You Like I Do,” though deeper and darker, is a reasonable extension of the preceding album, “Tragic Boogie.”

You get Epley’s glorious vocals rolling over drummer Chris Metcalf’s enthusiastic use of cymbals as well as single chords that echo almost endlessly.

The only things they seemed to have lost were the twinkly sounds—a good move for a moodier record.

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