Anthony Green - Beautiful Things Album Reviews & Song Lyrics

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Anthony Green Beautiful Things Album Cover

Anthony Green "Beautiful Things" album

- Release date : January 2012 -

Beautiful Things is the second studio album by Circa Survive's vocalist, Anthony Green. It was released on January 17, 2012. The first single, "Get Yours While You Can", was released on November 15, 2011. Chino Moreno of Deftones, Nate Ruess of fun., Norwegian rock artist Ida Maria and fellow Circa Survive musician Colin Frangicetto are guests appearing on the bonus tracks of the record.

"Beautiful Things" album tracks and lyrics

"Beautiful Things" album reviews

For whatever reason, honesty is surprisingly difficult to come by in modern music. Songwriters agonize over their lyrics, either trying to cloud them with difficult metaphors to hide their personal relevance or dumbing their emotions down to try and appeal to the broadest possible audience. Anthony Green is no stranger to the former; the first two Circa Survive albums are loaded with his esoteric musings. But a series of life events--his marriage, his first child, his newfound independence from mental-health medication--have altered his songwriting style for the better (and hopefully permanently). Beautiful Things, his second solo album, is a perfect representation of who Green is as a person now, and it pulls no punches as he wrestles with the joy, pain and struggle of growing up without necessarily growing old.

Recorded with Green's longtime friends and backing band Good Old War, Beautiful Things doesn't veer too far stylistically from 2008's Avalon. Tracks run from folksy and fragile ("Do It Right," "Lullaby") to angular and aggressive ("If I Don't Sing," "Can't Have It All At Once"). Green recruits some friends to add their talents to the proceedings, too: Circa bandmate Colin Frangicetto sings along with Green on "How It Goes;" Canadian electro-popper LIGHTS shows up on "Just To Feel Alive"; Maps And Atlases' guitar virtuoso Dave Davison adds some extra licks to first single "Get Yours While You Can"; and Ida Maria duets with Green on the fiesty rock 'n' roll number "Can't Be Satisfied," available as a bonus track. But Green and Good Old War don't really need the help; they're adept at everything from improvised a cappella numbers ("Do It Right") to electro-dub ("When I'm On Pills"). Frankly, one of Beautiful Things' few faults is the lack of more Good Old War; their impeccable vocal harmonies only creep up on a few tracks.

Really, though, the music is just a backdrop for Green to share his innermost thoughts, from his realization that "I'll always be unhappy if I don't sing" ("If I Don't Sing") to the self-reminder to "get your life together" ("Do It Right") to the numerous tracks written for and dedicated to his one-year-old son, James ("Love You No Matter What," "Lullaby" and the most poignant, "James' Song, which finds Green singing, "He laughs at everything/Unknowing the joy that he brings/There is this light in his eyes/So bright no one can deny.") It's inspiring to see someone who has publicly struggled with so much throughout the past decade finally get to the point where he finds his true meaning and fearlessly explores it, no matter who may be listening. Green finds time to deviate from this opening of his diary with "Blood Song." Inspired by the 2007 film There Will Be Blood, the track tells the story of the wife of an oil rigger who dies in an onsite explosion (seen in the movie). It's an odd place from which to draw inspiration, but it works surprisingly well lyrically. Unfortunately, the song suffers from a bouncy, faux-country arrangement that comes across as hokey instead of sincere.

Still, the amount of truly magical moments on Beautiful Things significantly outweigh any missteps along the way, making this an incredibly strong entry in Anthony Green's catalog--and one of the most honest albums we've heard in quite some time.

*** by Scott Heisel, Alternative Press ***

Anthony Green has a very unique and familiar voice that has lent itself over the years to a number of projects, bringing with it a particular quality that in turn helped to get those projects apart from their contemporaries. Not unlike Chris Carrabba or Dallas Green in that respect, Anthony Green has put his vocal stamp on the likes of Saosin, Circa Survive, and The Sound of Animals Fighting (to name a few) and his subdued lilt and catchy melodies have elevated even the most experimental content of some of his progressive outputs to a more accessible platform.

As with his first solo record, 'Avalon', Green is very much about laying all his cards on the table. There has always been an honesty in his lyrics that resonates with his fans, whether it’s shrouded in metaphor as with Circa Survive, or belted through the searching desperation of early Saosin. However, here we are presented with a comparatively straightforward form expression through which Green explores his own life, and all the fears, joys, and struggles that are attached to it. The result may not be quite as poetic or challenging as some of his former lyrical work, but it is fearlessly open and unflinchingly honest, and that is something that can be appreciated and admired by his fans (new-found and hardened veterans alike) in its own right.

Recorded with his backing band (and close friends) Good Old War, whose instrumentation and group-harmonies add a rich color and texture to the album, what makes Green’s solo work so interesting is how far removed it feels from any of his other projects. With numerous songs written for his one-year-old son (‘Love You No Matter What’, ‘Lullaby’, ‘James’ Song’) and almost all of them pertaining at some stage to his personal battle with clinical depression (“I’ll always be unhappy one way or the other/ I’ll always be unhappy if I don’t sing”) and his current perception of life (“And all I’ve got to do is run round in the rain/ Gather up perspective from that hail”), 'Beautiful Things' feels like an altogether more intimate work, playing through like something of an open diary that has to be read aloud regardless of who is listening.

His solo work is also set apart from his other projects in that it doesn’t have a particular “sound”. In essence, both 'Avalon' and 'Beautiful Things' are folk/acoustic efforts, but they both draw heavily on inspiration from such a diverse variety of genres that it gives the impression that Green isn’t entirely sure exactly what he wants to do. From the folksy a capella of ‘Do It Right’ and fierce and angular guitar riffs of ‘Can’t Have It All At Once’ to the alt-country vibes of ‘Big Mistake’ and the woozy, spacious electro-dub of ‘When I’m On Pills’, the songs sound so stylistically different that 'Beautiful Things' feels almost too inconsistent at times. It’s refreshing, but hard to really get a hold on as a singular body of work. Unsurprisingly, the main cohesive factor is Green’s voice. His defining high- pitched howl and raspy cry carves through each track like a river, still packing all punch it carries in harder projects through a more tender musical landscape.

As he wrestles with his own identity, most notably his liberty from medication and his new role as a father, 'Beautiful Things' is a versatile and poignant expression of Anthony Green’s self-discovery, and a tough milestone in his career as both a musician and a songwriter.

*** by Emma Garland, Alter! The Press ***

Philly renaissance man (or at least compulsive band-joiner) Anthony Green already had a considerable résumé by the time he decided to embark on a solo mission with 2008's Avalon. As frontman for Circa Survive, Green toned down the screamo/hardcore roots of some of his earlier projects into a more darkly shrouded indie sound, and under his own name, Green notches down the tumult even further. While opting for a gentler hipster singer/songwriter bent overall, Beautiful Things still sees Green's battle with his eclectic impulses play out song to song. Some baseline elements run through almost all 13 tracks. High-gloss production, dynamic instrumentation, and spirited performances help the songs jell into an easily digestible album of accessible melodies and folky pop. Joyous and breezy numbers like "Just to Feel Alive" and "Moon Song" make the most of Green's impeccable vocal harmonies, steeped in classic Beatles-worship influence but coming off like a strange hybrid of Brendan Benson and Connor Oberst. When Green experiments with subtle genre twisting, however, his songs wander into personality crisis territory. "Can't Have It All at Once" ping-pongs from aggressive Circa Survive-style post-emo verses to happy-go-lucky jangly choruses, he's incapable of choosing between two disparate styles that aren't really working together. Moments later, he dabbles with bluesy acoustic guitar riffs over an anguished howl. The most glaring example of this iffy trying on of styles is the electro-dub rhythms of "When I'm on Pills." Green tries to stuff as many superfluous percussion noises, compressed guitars, and other confusing sound choices (is that a G-Funk keyboard line floating in the background there??) into the song while the cringe-worthy lyrics "I love you when I'm on Pills" repeat in a syrupy crawl. Interviews around the time of the album's release found Green referring to big life changes between Avalon and Beautiful Things; getting married, having a kid, and choosing to kick prescription medication for his mental maladies. Just shy of 30 years old at the time of recording this album, these factors spell out a classic 1/3-life crisis scenario for Green. It's no doubt these changes left the new family man with a lot on his mind, and the dizzying sonic landscape of Beautiful Things reflects that. Green finds the most success when speaking directly to his muse in as simplified a language as possible. Stripped-down tracks like "James' Song" and beautiful album closer "Lullaby" are loving odes to his newborn son, and these uncluttered moments are the most fulfilling on the album. While there's enough of Green's carefree personality (maybe too much) to wrangle Beautiful Things together into some unified whole, keeping up with the shifting can be a little exhausting. The pleasant sheen of these song shines just enough to distract us from how deceptively scattered an affair the album truly is.

*** by Fred Thomas, All Music Guide ***