Send "The Paper Chase " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 We've been assured the Paper Chase's Someday This Could All Be Yours is a simpler, if not necessarily kinder record from them: ten songs, no interludes, no interstitial chit-chat. But this is a band with a sense of humor so dark it can make Xiu Xiu look like Fountains of Wayne. So, sure, it's probably the Paper Chase's most typically digestible work; it's also an exploration of humankind's futile attempts to manage itself in the face of catastrophe set to erratic squall, equal parts delirium and stone-cold sobriety.The Paper Chase's singularity is certainly something to be admired, especially when musical discussion too often boils down to "belongs in genre X"/"sounds like bands Y & Z." When you get the itch to listen to Someday, nothing else is going to suffice except for maybe other Paper Chase albums. It can also be a ceiling for your enjoyment in the event you value versatility or demand that bands should always have some sort of artistic trajectory in mind: it's been three years since Now You Are One of Us and the only musical touch-ups are what could be a harpsichord and maybe 30 seconds of acoustic guitar. So yes, Someday still manages to be undeniably the work of the Paper Chase, a continuation of the sort of musical scrapple they've made hay on, which is to say it's completely unappetizing going only on the ingredients. The songs here are composed of nasty little things-- tingling bits of piano wire, piercing guitar squawk, flatted thirds, minor seconds. Nearly every stringed instrument gets employed for dissonance taken separately, and yet collectively they become palatable, even catchy. It's easy to give too many props to the production of John Congleton-- after all, he's done engineering work with Modest Mouse (whose whole career gets summarized in about two and a half minutes on "The Laying of Hands, the Speaking in Tongues [The Mass Hysteria]") as well as Antony and the Johnsons. Plus, his straitjacketed, strangulated vocals suggest a lifetime of sipping from Saddle Creek....full text |
| Prefixmag |
| I'll say this about John Cogleton: The guy sure does go for it. All five of his albums to date with The Paper Chase have never been short on emotion or dramatics. His band's patchwork industro-rock sound is big and histrionic and, when done right, damn appealing. But what makes his paranoid tales of depravity and longing work best, as they did on God Bless Your Black Heart, when Cogleton has honed his venom-tipped spears and caught someone specific in his cross-hairs. And Someday This Could All Be Yours, Vol. 1 does that, but only in spots. The 10 tracks here each take on a different natural disaster. Opener "If Nobody Moves," for example, deals with extinction. The characters in the story lick 9-volt batteries and justifiably freak out and slam into each other as their end approaches. "I'm Going to Heaven With or Without You," which revolves around forest fire, is a well-executed litany of superstitions in the face of a biblical wall of flames, as in the last hour's faith twists itself into a weapon, as the challenge in the title suggests....full text |
| Tinymixtapes |
| Even if you’ve never heard any of The Paper Chase’s previous four full-length efforts, chances are very good that you’ve been touched by frontman John Congleton’s musical abilities already. When not indulging his creative id with this band, Congleton is a highly accomplished producer/engineer, with his hands in an incredible number of great releases over the past decade. In fact, through only the first half of 2009, he’s lent his talents to great albums from St. Vincent, Bill Callahan, and The Thermals. It should come as no surprise, then, that it’s taken three years for Someday This Could All Be Yours, Vol. 1, the follow-up to The Paper Chase’s last release, Now You Are One of Us. As you might assume from the title, this return is actually only the first of two installments in a conceptual project of songs focused on natural disasters. (Vol. 2 is due in 2010.) Despite the passage of time, this thematic choice evidences a continuity throughout The Paper Chase catalog, namely a preoccupation with human suffering, or, as the subtitle of the album’s closing track would have it, "the human condition."...full text |
The Paper Chase lyrics
