Send "Carissa's Wierd " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 It should come as no surprise that Hardly Art-- Sub Pop's little sister label-- is releasing this career-spanning compilation for the now-defunct, spell-check-maddening Carissa's Wierd. After all, Sub Pop has released records by three bands that grew out of it: Sera Cahoone, Grand Archives, and Band of Horses. Like Lifter Puller (the pre-Hold Steady band of Craig Finn and Co., which recently re-released its back catalog), Carissa's Wierd was a mostly local cult phenomenon in Seattle until two of its former members, Ben Bridwell and Mat Brooke, formed Band of Horses and released Everything All the Time. Every time Band of Horses was initially discussed, Carissa's Wierd's name appeared as well. Repeat something enough and it starts to resonate, and so casual fans of Band of Horses (and eventually Grand Archives, the band Brooke left BOH to start) started to hear about this defunct band, their final legendary show at Seattle's Crocodile, and that it was hard to get your hands on their three studio albums.Now that their hushed songs are gathered together for the first time, beware of listening to They'll Only Miss You When You Leave-- a title that proves that CW has a sense of humor about its place in indie rock history-- as a Band of Horses history lesson. First of all, BOH is Ben Bridwell's creation. He is that band's mastermind. But he is a relative footnote in Carissa's Weird, which was initially founded by a teenaged Matt Brooke and Jenn Ghetto in Tucson. It was only after the duo relocated to Seattle that they recruited subsequent members Bridwell and Cahoone (both of whom, at different points, played drums). And secondly, Band of Horses were never this off the beaten path-- Carissa's Wierd is so much stranger than any of the bands that have sprung from its ashes....full text |
| Dustedmagazine |
| Carissa’s Wierd, the intentionally misspelled, quietly radical Northwest indie band that never broke big, made a music that distills adolescence. Moody, disconsolate, tetchy dissatisfaction ran through the band’s songs, rising to the surface in twitchy bits of percussion, occasional profanities, and a profound discomfort with the way things are. Yet, like teenagers, as the songs recoil from the real world, they draw back into a cloudier, dreamier space, defined by whispered verses, twining strings and sweet collisions of parts and counterparts. The songs are often beautiful, but never exactly easy, their effortless melodies shot through with stinging, scornful angst. This disc spans Carissa’s Wierd’s entire seven-year career, with songs from all three of the full-lengths released during the band’s lifetime, as well as cuts from the two post-break-up albums, Scrapbook and I Before E. The earliest cuts, “Drunk with the Only Saints I Know” and “One Night Stand” from 2000’s Ugly But Honest, build slow-blooming, reticent climaxes out of guitar-jangle and the interlocking vocals of founders Mat Brooke and Jenn Ghetto. By the follow-up, You Should be Home Here, the sweet legato of violin has entered into the mix, adding an emotive throb to the band’s delicate sounds. In the waltz time, “The Color That Your Eyes Change with the Color of Your Hair,” one of the disc’s highlights, Brooke begins to reach for the grand, soaring melodies of his later work with Grand Archives, his hushed verse trailing off into baroque twirls of violin. “Brooke Daniels Tiny Broken Fingers,” from the same album, eases twitchy, offhandedly violent imagery with the salve of string arrangements, though the strings themselves turn violent mid cut, with hard-sawed flourishes and rhythmic abandon. The third album, 2002’s Songs About Leaving, offered the most volatile mix of angst and melody. Songs like “So You Want to be a Superhero” and “Ignorant Piece of Shit” (with Ghetto taking the lead) vibrated with uneasy, confrontational energy, while the lovely “Low Budget Slow Motion Soundtrack for Leaving” was a benediction for a band that is already on its way out. The later cuts, the ones put out Mike McGonigal’s Sad Robot imprint, continue this dichotomy, with Ghetto belting the nearly punk anxieties of “Die” and Brooke spinning diffuse, lovely, clouds of melody in “Blue Champagne Glasses.”...full text |
| Avclub |
| For most bands unjustly ignored while they were active, hindsight can be a boon and a bitch. That disconnect is definitely the case with Carissa’s Wierd, the defunct Seattle outfit whose catalog is bittersweetly sampled in They’ll Only Miss You When You Leave. Three Sub Pop acts—Band Of Horses, Grand Archives, and Sera Cahoone—sprang from Carissa’s ashes, but the band’s vast-yet-muted palette of alt-country grit, post-rock sprawl, and chamber-folk sophistication was either too subtle or too humble to grab a wider audience. Hushed as it is, though, it’s easy to see where more bombastic groups like Modest Mouse—with whom Carissa toured—and even Arcade Fire might be indebted to its off-kilter, symphonic alchemy. Comprising highlights from the group’s three overlooked full-lengths, They’ll Only Miss You is a flawless catalog of flaws, from the trembling, heartsick plea of “Low Budget Slow Motion Soundtrack” to the seesawing seasickness of “Phantom Fireworks.” Whether intended as such, the disc’s eponymous closer serves as an epitaph for the band itself; amid dribbled piano and gently unspooled strings, the group’s nucleus of Jenn Ghetto and Mat Brooke whispers, “The storm will slowly close in on me when it’s time to leave” in a harmony that’s absolutely ghostlike. Shaky, fractured, and emotionally ass-whupping, They’ll Only Miss You hurts most when it’s over....full text |
Carissa's Wierd lyrics
