As Tall As Lions
You Can't Take It With You
Making a record isn’t supposed to be easy, but listening to As Tall As Lions’ You Can’t Take it With You, with its dreamy sound, you might be surprised to find out that the album nearly ruined the New York-based quartet. This third album was two years in the pipeline as the follow-up to their self-titled 2006 album. From all the drama and dire days of changing producers midstream, the friends since high school travailed at the brink of combustion to bring out the heart and heat of this project.
Dan Nigro, singer/pianist/guitarist, croons, You had me going for a minute there- I’ll fight your demons when they start to show on spritely ‘Circles.’ Title track ‘You Can’t Take it With You’ evokes a sense of time-slowing down on an album premised on the individual’s detachment from other human contact. Actually, there’s not a lot of extraneous effects on the album, as if their instruments were more than enough. ‘Sleepyhead’ is a whisper song, which holds the lyrics, Nigro’s voice, and the tender instrumentation in an effervescent balance interrupted only by the sound of the heart monitor [spoiler alert].
‘There was a black cloud over this album the entire time,’ says guitarist Saen Fitzgerald. But with its lush layers and shoegaze indie sound, You Can’t Take it With You forecasts clear skies for the guys.
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