mewithout you new cd revieuw

Mewithoutyou
“So have you heard about Mewithoutyou?” The question left me feeling hurt and unwanted. I thought he meant him without me, but after the usual miscommunication birthed from ambiguous sentence structures, I was informed that this was a band name, not, as I had thought, a personal insult. The conversation meandered into other avenues after that, but the name stuck in my head. Two days later, Audrey Watne asks me the same question. This time I’m prepared. “No” I respond ‘I don’t think I’ve had the privilege.” To which the usually very articulate Ms Watne responds with “Aaggh, dude! …”
When she had recovered from the shock caused by my ignorance she proceeded to quote me a few lines from “a four word letter”, one of their better known songs. Unimpressed, yet intrigued by the sudden loss of intelligent speech, I politely dropped the subject and moved on, thinking that was the end of it. But fate had something else in store. Mewithoutyou began to spread like a slow but deadly virus amongst my friends. Converts were being made left and right. When the subject was broached they would engage with all the fervor of the Chosen Few seeking to save the lost. Let me illustrate: when asked to explain Mewithoutyou they responded with these choice morsels:
(Let me add that the first reaction was invariably an ecstatic, unintelligible exclamation, accompanied by a hand placed over the heart and an eye gazing raptly off into the blue yonder. After holding this contemplative, worshipful pose for a few moments they released the torrent of words you find below.)

“In the land before time, there was God, and Mewithoutyou.”
“Their Christianity is not just some shallow bumper sticker; it’s branded on their hearts.”
“The depth of their Christianity goes way beyond the superficiality common to Christian lyrics.”
“They just ARE, and they say who they are, and they love animals and they love people.”
“Catch for us the foxes (their sophomore album) deals with unity between the believer and God, but also the choice of God or suicide”
“You passionately love them or you’re like “what is this freak saying””
“They are heavily influenced by bands like At the Drive In and Sunny Day Real Estate.”
“They’re EPIC”
“They’re not just a lame “Christian band”, not just G, C and D and some lyrics.”
And my all time favorite : A friends father, disapproving of his skipping class to buy the new CD, asked him to wait a few days before purchasing said CD. His response? Classic:
“Dad, we wait for marriage and we have no control over it. Mewithoutyou is the next best thing and I do not have to and will not wait for that!”

In the words of the immortal Doors “the time for hesitation is through” With all this excitement bubbling over all around me I knew I needed to listen to this band myself. It seemed to be perfect timing, since their third album had just dropped in stores. Called Brother, Sister, after the Canticle of Brother Sun by Saint Francis, it is the best album as yet from a band not yet confident of its sound. Even the bands most loyal fans agree that they do take some getting used to. Having said that, the CD is an excellent musical experience, with a wide variety of instruments to be heard on the thirteen tracks making up the CD. There are harps, rain, broke bottles, handclapping and chanting in Hebrew, just to mention a few.
Brother, Sister has a fair share of soft songs, like the spider trilogy, which are barely more than musical whispers. These create an atmosphere of intimacy, as if we were listening through a keyhole to a man extemporizing on the meaning of life.

Buying the album online at midnight, I fell asleep to sound of rain rushing down to meet the earth and merging with Aaron Weiss’s vocals on the way. As lead vocalist and lyricist of the band, Weiss is largely responsible for the bands reputation of honesty and self-deprecation. Speaking rather than singing, his style has been described as spoken-screaming. He blends his deepest fears, beliefs and hopes with everyday occurrences, creating an intimate window into his mind using such diverse examples as overdue library books, pumpernickel bread and a broken record player. The end result is that he completely disarms the listener by his unique use of the English language. His choice of words proves to be intriguing and thought provoking. Even so the lyrics are hard to understand the first time through. Weiss’s voice has an odd, almost muted, quality to it, muffling the words. Repeated listening however reveals the true beauty beneath the crusted surface. He reaches conclusions consistent with Christian doctrine, but in such a roundabout why that the truths he sings of seem delightfully fresh, exciting and personal. The songs left me feeling as if someone had removed a blindfold and flipped the lights on in the room so I could finally see the things I had only been able to sense were there. In his own words: “I’m afraid I don’t have any answers for you. I have questions myself, and the suspicion that I will and should never find complete answers in this life, otherwise in arrogance I may think I’ve come to comprehend that which is beyond comprehension!”
In posing these questions, he elicits an answer that differs from listener to listener, allowing the songs to become deeply personal to each individually.
So in conclusion, what can I say about this very unique band that would make you want to listen to them? (Which, by the way I think you should) Well, with a hand placed over my heart and a far-of look in my eyes, I think I’ll say “aah… dude! ...” Because I have too been converted. Brother, sister is an excellent, solid, musically valid work that has the advantage of possessing a deep well of spiritual and personal experiences. After listening to them one want to sit and ponder life for a while.