Bombay Bicycle Club

So Long, See You Tomorrow

10
10/10
Joel Frieders | February 20, 2014

I am fortunate in life.

I know this.

One of the main reasons I don't complain about things other than lazy musicians (read: tag your music bro) is that I realize I'm one of the lucky ones. I am inherently happy. I realize people think I'm a freak for being so outgoingly fucking happs in public and on the internet, but if you were sitting where I'm sitting, you'd be pretty fucking happs too bro.

Quite possibly the biggest thing that makes me so consistently happy throughout the day (besides the corny answer of the wife & kids bro) is that I'm surrounded by music. From the second I wake up until the second I don't notice I'm not awake anymore, I am on the fucking jam bro. Skrait huffin the jam to the bro dome bros.

Not only am I on that jam bro, I'm lucky enough to be a dude from SYFFAL so I gets more music thrown at me than pretty much anyone else on the planet (hyperbole bro, have some). So whether or not I'm open to receiving some penetrations from a new band or I'm stuck on a band I been lovin' on for decades, I have more options than, say, my wife (who doesn't care about music at all). And because I am so brotally aware, and so brotally thankful, my job is to tell people about the things that continue to make broel friederbro so bro fucking happs.

The latest in the 34 year string of me hearing things that make me so fucking happy and energized and insanely hyper and so fucking thankful that I exist to be thankful that it exists, is the new album from Bombay Bicycle Club titled So Long, See You Tomorrow.

Holy jesus balls dipped in frankenstein and twerk, if there was ever a hand addressed personalized album made just for Joel bro, it's zis one bro. Like, about forty five seconds into the first song, Overdone, I was laying in bed wiff the headphones on and I popped up and said "this is balls". Sure I woke up my wife. Sure I didn't know exactly where it was going to go as an album. Sure I was slightly intoxicated. But dude?

I fell asleep pretty quick in this strangely happy fog of "holy shit I can't wait to wake up and listen to this". I listened on the way to the gym, on the way back from the gym, in the shower, on the way to work, while doing some work, at lunch, after work on the way to a meeting, just before the meeting, immediately after the meeting, on the way home from the meeting, and then again while trying to go nigh nigh (I GOTS KIDS BRO, BACK UP OFF ME). I let this shit envelope every waking moment for like two straight days. I didn't even take a breff when my other SYFFAL bros tried to send me links of shit to listen to (as is our daily routine).

When I was ready to tell someone, anyone, about Bombay Bicycle Club's So Long, See You Tomorrow, I stated the following without a hint of sarcasm:

"When people ask me what type of music I listen to, this is it. Generally AND specifically."

BBC (*hahahahahahaha) sounds a whole lot like a little bit each of White Denim and Sigur Ros and Queen and Electric Guest and The Naked and Famous and The Neighbourhood and Dangermouse jamming with Holy Fuck and Solid Gold and RAHGODBLESSJAHMERICA I hear so many sounds and feel so many feels I JUST WANNA SHAVE TOM'S CHIN AND JUST PACK IT WITH SUGAR SNAP PEAS AND GLUTEN FREE BREAD CRUMBS UNTIL HE TURNS INTO A TALKING RETRO TOASTER WITH HIS OWN ANIMATED MOVING PICTURE AVAILABLE NOW ON DISNEY DVD. #runonsentencesaysfuckoffbro

Bombay Bicycle Club hath gifted me with overwhelming joy these past few days thanks to the delivery of this new album. All together it's blissful and exhilarating and foreign and familiar, but throughout each individual track I'm blessed with these feels of having taken a vacation to some land I've never been, waking up before my kids (on a weekend, after 9am, BRO!), and showering in a warm trickle of green tea.

While I could suck the album off in general terms, for the sake of being specific when I reread this around December 15th of this year when we pick the albums of the year, I think I should quickly list just a few of the individual traits of So Long, See You Tomorrow to properly sum this shit up.

  • When the drums come in on Overdone and then at the minute mark when the harmony kicks in BUT THAT LICK AT 1:36 THAT KEEPS COMING BACK. HO GOD I WANT TO MARRY IT AND THEN LOSE IT AT SEA FOR THREE YEARS AND THEN WHEN I RECONNECT WITH IT RANDOMLY WHILE ON A CONTIKI CRUISE AND IT TELLS ME OF A TALE OF LOSING ITS MEMORY ALL THOSE YEARS AGO AND I GET TO FALL IN LOVE WITH IT ALL OVER AGAIN.... starring tanum chatting bro. OH AND THAT COWBELL? Sinister and fucking hell yes.
  • The Sigur Ros-ish intro from It's Alright Now starting the facebook highlight film of my life... and then that snare bro. FACK!
  • The techno melody you make with your mouth from Carry Me after you realize this shit is going to stick in your head for a fucking month, and then and then and then and then that vocal layering sampling shit that builds with that snare until you're greeted by that techno melody AND THEN bass build, synth dribbles, repetitive vocal, and then WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! IT'S ALL HAPPENING PENNY LANE! AAAAAAAAH! I'M STRIKING EVERY DRUM OR CYMBAL OR PERSIAN IN SIGHT!
  • Home By Now is the most hip hop adult contemporary I've heard in six years. I want it to move in next door and let me spy on it while it showers and borrow cups of sugar from it when we both know I don't eat sugar bro. It's sexual tension on a suburban level bro.
  • On Luna, when the female vocals layer in on top of the chorus I want to physically grab ahold of the music with both hands and roll it back over on top of myself and just fucking sleep under it.
  • Towards the end of Eyes Off You when I realize I'm hugging myself and no one is holding the steering wheel.
  • The fists I have clenched, and the rolling motion I'm making with both of them, throughout the song Feel. THIS SONG IS LIFE. SERIOUS BALLS ON A FACETIOUS SQUARE THIS IS LIIIIIIIIIFE! I want this song to adopt me and include me as a dependent on its state and federal taxes.
  • The bassline on Come To is the reason why music was fucking created. It is its own soundtrack to its own life as itself on its own.
  • Because the title track is the last track and quite possibly the most comprehensively layered track on the album, it must be given reverence even before listening to it, but seriously bro, this is the slow motion Nestea Ice Tea plunge until at 4:18 it turns into an Ozomatli show and everyone is hitting everything with anything and we're all staring at our feet with our eyes closed for like two straight minutes, there is nothing fucking wrong. And then the Jackson 5 get in on the samplez.

Bombay Bicycle Club's new album So Long, See You Tomorrow is the greatest album of 2014 so far, and I'm wagering it is my favorite complete piece of music since I last sucked off Solid Gold's Bodies of Water all those years ago. Every song is my favorite. Every song deserves an article about it. Every song could be played at my birth, graduation, wedding, birth of any of my children, election into office, retirement, funeral, ANY TIME IS TIME.

I am in awe of how much this album has entertained me. I am thankful for how much this album has enlivened me. I am envious of those who hold such talent with which to create this album.

I am naked on a lawn chair in a freshly mowed meadow, sipping a half empty glass of dandelion wine, collecting the happy tears this album hath gifted me into a seashell I plucked from the ocean floor near Bora Bora in my dreams (where I also danced with a guy named Yuri who claimed to be Puerto Rican even though I heard him speaking Russian to the maid at my resort).

If you don't buy this or at least listen to this, I will assume you are a complete dick and in need of massage therapy to work the ASSHOLE out of your lumbar brobar.