HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS: Top 11 Records with Suburban Homes on the Cover

When it came time to put down our sandwiches and cobble together Dear Jerks' first annual year-end list, "home for the holidays" was an obvious choice for the theme. Just like it should have been an obvious choice for Beach House to put a picture of a beach house on one of their record covers. And yet, lo and behold, they are now four deep and still haven't gotten their stuff together. (No, the inside of a house doesn't count.)

Needless to say, we got mad about that for a while. Then we realized that if we were going to be mad at Beach House, we'd also have to be mad at Chapterhouse, the Housemartins, Swedish House Mafia -- not to mention Led Zeppelin, for royally botching the Houses of the Holy cover. Not only that, it's hard to stay mad when Santa Claus will soon be waking from his year-long slumber to traverse the globe and break in to the homes of Christians everywhere both devout and non-practicing alike....



11.  Braid - The Age of Octeen

Sure, you can only see the roofs here, but when you think about it, Santa Claus mostly just sees the roofs, so this is like the "Santa's-eye" view. How 'Christmas' is that?!



10.  Golden City - Golden City

That is definitely not Santa Claus coming in for a landing. This was likely taken from the storyboard for the 1986 cinematic gem, starring a G.I. Joe-obsessed Fred Savage, The Boy Who Could Fly.

9.  Silversun Pickups – Neck of the Woods

This gives us the distinct feeling that there's someone inside the window calling the cops on us for stalking.

8.  Swell Maps - A Trip to Marineville

...and this gives us the distinct feeling that someone definitely should have called the cops on us. 

7.  We Were Promised Jetpacks - These Four Walls

We were promised jetpacks, but all we got were these single-detached metaphors for disappointment.

6.  Real Estate - Days

This is the same row of houses as on the Jetpacks' cover, taken later that same day from a different angle. 

5.  The Microphones - Window

This family probably asked Santa Claus to bring them a driveway, and FiOS.  

4.  Harvey Danger - Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?

Wherever the merrymakers have gone, Santa is going to unleash a furious wrath when he discovers they didn't leave him the required sacrificial tribute of cookies and milk. Don't make the same mistake. 

3.  The Wrens - The Meadowlands

Tragically, this home has been forsaken by Santa. That is because there is no chimney, which is Santa's only feasible means of egress into any domicile. True fact. 

2.  Oasis - “Live Forever”

Speaking of which: considering this is John Lennon’s childhood home, it is a Christmas miracle that Noel Gallagher is not trying to sneak down the chimney here.

1.  Madness - “Our House”

This may seem like a simple choice, but it is truly an onion of mystery, with each perplexing layer more tear-inducing than the last. Why is there a free-standing brownstone in the middle of a verdant field of flowers? Is the door made out of the sky? Why does it have sinister-ish eyes? Is the roof actually a cartoon bomb? What on earth is that yellow thing tethered to it? Much like Christmas itself, it leaves you asking questions which make no sense outside of its own context.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!

Honorable Mention:  Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Yeah, yeah, we know, could have easily been on the list...but there's too much emphasis on the car and the tree for our tastes. Don't fret, this one is a shoo-in for 2013's "records with lame cars and ugly palm trees on the cover" list.

Oneida Celebrate Their Quinceanera: Secret Project Robot, 12/1/12

(All photos courtesy of Bryan Williams)

Oneida celebrated fifteen years of making sometimes-clanging, sometimes-pulsing, sometimes-disorienting, post-motorik-post-psychedelic music together with a not-secret show at Secret Project Robot in Bushwick last Saturday, December 1st. True to non-form, their set started with three relatively short favorites, including a raucous turn through the garage-burner "Doin' Business in Japan." Then they went to town on a morphing jam that took up the large middle chunk of their nearly hour-and-a-half set. What still photographs can't show is that the lights and graphics were perpetually swirling around the room. It might have been a bad time to be on anything harder than a few PBR's.

The young woman behind me, genuinely enthused, asks her friend, "What are these guys called?" This is always a good sign at shows. Seriously. It means the room isn't entirely the realm of obsessives who can cite every d-side.

There's no question that all of them are working hard, but it's a wonder that Kid Millions' arms don't give out multiple times. There must be a disused pre-war claw foot bathtub somewhere in the back of this art space filled with ice water waiting for him afterwards. "We've got one more...one more nugget," Bobby Matador tells the crowd. The little nugget unfolds and folds itself back up over roughly twenty minutes. If only Oneida could play everyone's birthday, not just their own.  

Mt. Erie Is a Place, and So Is Mount Eerie: Live at (Le) Poisson Rouge, 11/28/12

Phil Elverum’s dedication to his work is apparent in a number of ways. For evidence, look no further than the instrument in his hands tonight; tuning a twelve-string guitar takes more time and patience than tuning a standard six-string. Witness also his schedule. This is Mount Eerie’s second visit to New York City and (Le) Poisson Rouge in as many months. In September they were making the national rounds, but this stop is different. “We’re not on tour,” Eleverum notes to the audience while telling them about the next night’s show at NYU, sounding surprised to say it. Three thousand miles is a long way to travel for a two-night residency in the West Village.  

Same as with the September shows (they also played 285 Kent Ave on that tour), tonight’s set focuses on pulling together Mount Eerie’s two complimentary soon-to-be year-end list toppers in a way that coherently translates into a live experience. Sequencing-wise, this means stitching some linear stretches (starting with the first few songs from Clear Moon) of the two records together, and some other shuffling of the deck. Execution-wise, aside from the impossibility of recreating the massive sound of Elverum’s recording space, the five musicians making up this live iteration do it sincere justice, and conjure the clarity and confusion of both records. If ‘a sense of place’ is one of Mount Eerie’s abiding focuses (and it is), the cavernous de-sanctified church that Elverum renamed The Unknown and set up his analog recording equipment inside of is a physical realization of that focus.

photo courtesy of Bryan Williams

In addition to the two albums, there also exists a 7” of Clear Moon and Ocean Roar condensed. Each side has all the songs from its respective LP playing on top of each other. The concept sounds like a prank or gimmick, but it genuinely works in a peculiar way. Each ‘song’ captures something akin to the aura of its respective album. The hum of “Clear Moon” is warmer; “Ocean Roar” is more violent. They both function similar to how, say, all the individual cheering voices in a crowded stadium form that singular voice-of-humanity tone when heard all at once.

Mount Eerie’s last three releases are something like culminations of long-building themes in Elverum’s music catalog, which now numbers in the hundreds of songs; a body of work that is its own forest to wander and get lost in (and that’s not mentioning his writing, photography, and other pursuits). There are thicker threads stitching his quilt together than the commonly identified “nature,” or the somewhat more apt (if also more vague) aforementioned “sense of place,” but those are proper places to start. They would also make easy jumping off points for generating bad made-up genre names, like “tree-gaze” or “old-growth school,” if that’s your thing.

Stopping short of generating a proper word cloud, to get an idea of where the journey has been wandering to date, it’s a worthwhile exercise to just add up the numbers, not interpret them. Three elemental forces for change in the known living world have now come in to focus over the last three sequential Mount Eerie records: wind, moon, ocean.  These three things have been name-dropped in numerous Elverum songs since he started recording them under his previous nom de plume, The Microphones. Here’s an incomplete accounting…

- Wind’s Poem has “Wind’s Dark Poem” and “Wind Speaks”, but there has also been “I Want Wind to Blow”, "I Lost My Wind", “The Breeze.”

- Clear Moon has “Clear Moon”, but this one has come up a bunch: “The Moon”, "Moon Moon", "Moon, Moon, Moon", “Moon Sequel”, “Moon, I Already Know”, “(2 Moons)”, “In Moonlight.”

- Ocean Roar has “Ocean Roar” and “Waves”, but, again…“Ocean”, “Ocean 1, 2, 3”, “The Same Ocean”, “This is the Same Ocean”, “Over Dark Water”, “Log in the Waves.”

Of course, there has also been the ‘glow’ theme, with The Microphones’ legend-status-securing The Glow Pt. 2, and the various songs about glowing and gleaming and such. What will the next Mount Eerie album focus on? "Air" or "Cold" might be good guesses (see “I’ll Be in the Air”, “You Were in the Air”, “You’ll Be in the Air”, “The Air in the Morning", and “I’m Getting Cold”, “I Want to Be Cold”, “Cold Mountain”,  “Cold Mountain’s Song #286”).

If you’re wondering where the sun fits in to all of this, it is his business partner: the label he runs is called P.W. Elverum & Sun, Ltd.

photo courtesy of Bryan Williams

At the heart of the fixation with change, of course, sits a mountain. No more seemingly static a physical body exists on Earth. But, of course, mountains are constantly shifting, rising, and collapsing. Elverum, in his music, continuously reflects on temporality and impermanence, but he’s also a fourth or fifth generation resident of a town with a metropolitan population of roughly 15,000 – one that, despite its own innate charm, is utilized by non-residents predominantly as a gateway to the farther-out tourist destination San Juan Islands. Like every other pioneer settlement that sprang up on the eastern shores of Puget Sound in the gold rush era, Anacortes once sought to be the terminus for the transcontinental railroad. Its cumulative raison d’etre lies somewhere between being a destination and a stop along the way. The oddly phonetic name comes from a place of personal romance; for Annie Curtis, wife of the geologist who founded the nascent outpost’s post office.

The band reaches back into the Microphones’ catalog for one song tonight. “The Moon” is a fan favorite and back catalog stand out, but its selection might owe more to being a prominent ‘moon’ song, fitting with the new records (it’s a shame there won’t be a ‘Tides’ box set of the two together). Notably, it doesn’t sound like it does on The Glow Pt. 2, it sounds like Mount Eerie covering it. Seems obvious to say, but technically it’s not a cover. The edges of “The Moon” are blurrier, as if reconstructing the barreling momentum of the original from the memory of a dream. After one more, the band leave the stage for all of two minutes and come back for a one-song encore, obliging the woman who beseeches them to “make us move” with what amounts to a straight up funk song for the band, coaxing the reverent heads across the floor to nod a little harder.    

     

Bi-Coastal Double Concert Review: Metz

A rare moment of calm during Metz's 11/20 set at the Knitting Factory in NYC

Hello and welcome to the first ever Dear Jerks Bi-Coastal Double Concert Review, and possibly the first ever bi-coastal double concert review. We're not sure. We both had the good fortune of seeing Metz play this month; first in Seattle on November 2nd (Kyle), and then in New York on November 20th (Ian). We decided to conduct this little exercise before either show had happened, so up until this point we've yet to discuss our impressions at all. This is our way of telling you, dear readers, that we apologize if this goes off the rails, or never actually finds its way on to them.

Kyle: I guess I'll start this thing off since the Seattle show was first, way back at more or less the dawn of time. Going in, I wasn't sure what to expect. I hadn't heard much about their live show, and Metz is one of those bands where it's hard to predict how their sound will translate from record to stage. Well, that question was answered approximately one minute into opener "Knife in the Water." Right away I was impressed with how tight and polished it was, something that was ultimately a major takeaway of the show for me. Dudes are gonna make themselves some fans on the road.

Ian: Agreed. Many focused records have been made by bands that won't or can't bring the same preciseness on stage with them. Not that long into the necessarily short set, a drunk Mosh Bro started yelling "don't give up!" at Metz in between songs. Eventually Chris Slorach, the bass player, shot back: "Have you heard our album? We're halfway done...we're playing everything." They jammed a bit extra on their last song, but otherwise they were tightly focused. Wish the same could be said for some of the gentlemen in the aforementioned mosh pit. Did your show even have, as our grandparents used to call it, 'slam dancing'? This was the first time I've seen something like that at The Knitting Factory. The impromptu mosh pit was surprisingly big, a little swirling nebula in the center-front of the floor. It started with the second song, and after they played it singer/guitarist Alex Edkins said "thanks for moving around" completely deadpan, but honest. There was even one successful stage dive during the last song.

Kyle: It's funny you mention the unexpected moshing, because out here the dudes (and it was mostly dudes) up near the front were unusually stationary, even by Seattle standards. The whole crowd was pretty subdued actually, but I attributed it mostly to the strangely early start time. Metz hit the stage at 9 as the third band on the bill, and even with a short encore I found myself at a bar with drink in hand and a belly full of pizza by 10:30. It's funny, because I came out of the show having been thoroughly entertained, but also feeling just a tiny bit disappointed that they seemed to pretty much keep their crayons inside the lines for most of the night. That's not to say that they weren't fantastic, but maybe I was just geared up for a squelching cacophony? I'm curious to know if you had any similar impressions, or whether maybe I should just stop nitpicking?

Ian: From as soon as we got to the venue, the entire front of the stage was lined with kindly fellas with quality cameras, and a few fragile-looking youngsters (it was an all-ages show). I was expecting an audience like yours. Sad to say, I've never truly spent time in a pit, but I'm down with being on the border. One of my favorite concert memories involves being slammed into by a guy three times my weight at a massively oversold Botch show at the Breakroom in Seattle (which has now been Chop Suey for a decade). The flailers at Metz weren't quite of that caliber, but I felt relieved for the band that there was a legitimately chaotic element in the crowd. It also brought all the non-moshers closer together by default. Fittingly enough, I ended up being part of the 'barrier,' and felt a bit bad for the people directly behind me. It was close quarters in that little room.
             
As for staying inside the lines, when they first went on and started up an intro feedback wail, Edkins spent quite a while trying to undo the tie that held back the black curtain on the side of the stage so that it would block out the other lights. He didn't give up until it finally came loose, and it did create a cool effect. They almost looked like they were in a diorama. The determination to get the curtain closed seemed to allude to a rigid creative vision. But then there are times when Edkins looks like he's about to scream and shake his way into an epileptic fit. If that's all timed and planned out, well, good on them. They sold pizza at your show?

Kyle: Dude, selling pizza at shows definitely falls into that 'best/ worst' category of ideas. Sadly, Barboza is not trying out that particular social experiment, and I had to get my pizza up the block after they cleared out the venue for some other event. Anyway!

Man, I wish we had a mosh pit in Seattle. The statuesque crowd staring at Metz tear through their set bordered on surreal. Eventually I even started to feel bad for the band. It must be tough to be putting everything out there and to get so little feedback. Some people were noticeably more into opener Survival Knife, and I suspect that maybe much of the crowd was there to see them and then stuck around for Metz? I dunno. I to have to say that Survival Knife did absolutely kill it. Featuring founding members of Unwound Brandt Sandeno and Justin Trosper, I expected to see a set of epic, sprawling, post-hardcore. Nope. Instead, it was as if these dudes decided that the kids had royally messed up emo (fact) and decided to show them how it should have been done. I'm definitely looking forward to their debut. You mentioned on Twitter that you had a pretty good opener experience in NY as well?

Ian: You mean emo from the emocore era, like DC/SoCal in the late-80's/early-90's? Yeah, I can hear that. I can also hear, of course, early Unwound in there as well, which is an incredibly welcome sound. They haven't played NYC yet (as far as I know), but I've spent some quality time with what's floating around Youtube and such. Those guys have needed to get back to making this kind of music for a long time; thankfully, they are now.

But, yes: Brooklyn's Yvette played second, before Metz, and made a seriously impressive racket for being two seemingly well-mannered guys of average build. Half of the time it felt like they might be improvising, but the other half of the time it was clear that they weren't, and that's what made the parts where it felt like they might be improvising all the more impressive. Unless, y'know, they really were just messing around, in which case it still sounded cool. Heretofore unbeknownst to me, they've been around for a bit, and have this here bandcamp. For what it's worth, they are playing Living Bread in Bushwick this Friday. Catch this new part of the rich lineage of Northeast noise duos like Lightning Bolt and Mouthus before they play ATP, or something.

Metz are now in one of the most exciting band career phases to watch, as opposed to the inevitable fat years or the greying-age acoustic tour. They've been honing their set for some time, the debut document is finally out of the gates, they have a well endowed label behind them, critical momentum, and a live show that should be making converts by the dozens and turning out bigger audiences with each go-around they make. Where do you think they go from here?

Kyle: Yeah, Metz seem to have a lot working for them right now. I'm sure they'll be playing a much bigger room next time they roll through Seattle, that's for sure. What's a bit harder (and exciting) to guess is where their sound will go from here. They are one of those rare young bands that seems to have a fairly fully realized sound, and the chops to execute it on stage as well as on record. The question for them (and contemporaries like Cloud Nothings) is: will they be content to mine the same territory for a while longer, or will they begin distancing themselves from their 90s indie rock reference points? I don't think there's a right answer to that question myself, so I'll be eagerly awaiting whatever comes next.

Ian: I was hoping you were going to say "make a rock opera about the life of David Yow."

Dan Snaith, Predictor of Major Weather Events

What do Nostradamus and this album have in common?

It has recently come to our attention that Dan Snaith, the man behind Caribou (who will always kinda still be Manitoba in our hearts), may not just be a brilliant composer and multi-instrumentalist. He may, in fact, be clairvoyant.

Here is the track list for Caribou's Andorra, which in 2008 won the Polaris Music Prize, an award that is kind of like a Grammy, but records with titles like He Poos Clouds can win it. It is also awarded by polar bears. Notice anything interesting?

No joke: "Irene" and "Sandy." Two of these songs share their names with the two hurricanes that hit the Northeast and New York City in the past two years.

Because we firmly believe that correlation does imply causation, we are going to start stockpiling canned goods for 2013's Hurricane Desiree. Or Hurricane Niobe. Or a winter storm named Eli, because they are giving those things dude names now. Snaith has warned you. We'll also be spending the rest of the weekend going over Up in Flames for missed clues about the 2008 financial crisis.

Dan Snaith, Namer of Storms, emitting psychic vibrations into the universe.

Stuff That We Are Thankful For: 2012 Edition (there have been no other editions)

Brought to you by this drunk turkey

Kyle...

1)  "No. 1 Against the Rush" by Liars

Amongst internet streams, endless playlists, and shuffle modes, songs often burn bright and then fade quickly in my memory. Every once in a while though, one comes along that just sticks. Enter "No. 1 Against the Rush," from Liars' latest record WIXIW. Liars plus ominous synths and sweet chopped up samples? Please and thank you.

2)  Maserati

God bless you Maserati. With Maserati VII, you could have chosen to go in one of many different directions after tragically losing drummer Jerry Fuchs. Instead, you chose to plow on full steam ahead ahead in your quest to push the boat-chase-soundtrack envelope to its absolute limits. There's something comforting in the knowledge, no matter what else is going on in the world, that you're out there somewhere opening up the throttle as far as she'll go.

3)  99% Invisible

I'm playing it fast and loose with the them here, but the self-described "Tiny Radio Show About Design" by Roman Mars is one of the very best radio shows/podcasts out there period and I just have to share. Even if you're not into design per-se, the beautiful stories, flawless production, and refreshing brevity add up to a consistently great listen. There are a lot of great podcasts out there right now that I absolutely love, but for me, 99% Invisible is as close to perfect as they get.

Ian...

1)  Godspeed You! Black Emperor released their first new album in ten years

Kind of goes without saying, since Dear Jerks essentially began as a way for us to mess ourselves about Allelujah! in a public but semi-anonymous forum. But, still: uuunnnhhh.



2)  Phil Elverum

 
While most musicians won't even release one of the best albums of the year this year, Phil Elverum, the one-man band that is Mount Eerie, released two of them. This sonic alchemist has put Anacortes, WA, back on the map in a way not seen since The Revolutionary Hydra released "Anacortes Type Writer" on their split 7" with Death Cab For Cutie way back when. And that, if only by definition, is saying something.


3)  Regents' Antietam After Party

Frodus Lives! Twenty-six frenetic minutes from a group of guys culled from a sizeable number of the last decade's post-hardcore luminaries. "Start to Beginning" is barely a minute, and the first half of that minute is brought to you by the Hardcore Drum Corps. Don't worry, herein also dwells a Hardcore Back-Up Choir, and an Aramaic chant. The Homeland-meets-falconry cover art is a nice touch.  


4)  That day back in September when Phil Collins' ...Hits was on sale for $1 on Amazon

Not to pack this list with dudes named Phil, but that day was super sweet. Does ...Hits have "Another Day In Paradise" on it? Well, it ain't called ...Hits because it doesn't have "Another Day In Paradise" on it, that's for certain.

Top 13 Albums With Disembodied Arms On The Cover

When looking back on the long, gangly history of rock albums that have disembodied arms for their cover art, one can't help but also wistfully reflect on the lost opportunities; the chances for loose-limbed legend that swung and missed. There was Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms, for one. Even more egregious, consider the case of Seattle-based post-hardcore band These Arms Are Snakes. Sure, there's a floating hand on Oxeneers, but that hand clearly belongs to, and is overshadowed by, the head underneath it...and besides, that's not even the real point. The point is: are two big-ass snakes for arms really all that hard to draw??! 

#13.   Sister Psychic - Catch and Release

Seriously dudes, you all had to get in the same room at least every once in a while to practice, right? And, unless you did so begrudgingly in complete silence, you probably all talked to each other? Exchanging words and ideas? Yet, somehow, we the public are all supposed to buy the idea that not a single one of you, at any point, suggested "oh man, a couple of gnarly snakes for arms rocking out on a flaming guitar, or maybe choking a leprechaun, would be a kick-ass record cover." What the hell were you doing that whole time then?!

#12.   Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

Wanna see how easy it is? Just look at Godspeed. Godspeed have five times as many members as These Arms Are Snakes, and yet when it comes time for them to all sit cross-legged around the campfire and pass the talking stick counterclockwise, it happens like this: "What's the album called again? Oh, okay, how about we just draw that on a piece of cardboard then?" Two dozen "aye's" later: ART.

#11.   Antlers - Hospice

Of course, disembodied hands (sometimes with wrists, as in this particular instance) can also be used in less literally interpretive ways. Here, a deceptively simple drawing is used to illustrate what is surely one of the most painful experiences a human being could ever bear in this world. Cheers, Antlers. 

#10.   Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica

Here's a happier meeting of two hands, perhaps meant to show the moon and Antarctica coming to an agreement, one that probably has to do with conspiring against the tides, or gravity. It's a shame that the Mouse dropped this prog-tastic original cover for the 2004 reissue, but they could have done worse...

#9.   Hole - Ask For It  EP

...A LOT WORSE. Courtney Love was never exactly known for tact, but holy balls. Who the eff at the record label green-lighted this s#@t?!  I'm sorry, but do you know who didn't "ask for it"? The fourteen-year-old me who stumbled on this in the racks at Tower Records way back when and couldn't scrub the image out of his head forever.  

#8.   Matt Sweeney + Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Superwolf

Anyway, moving on...well well, what do we have here? Now here's an arm that looks like a snake! Better yet, it looks like an evil, gnarly snake, right down to the bit of blood -- or venom, totally up to interpretation -- dripping from its mouth. Perhaps because it just devoured the superwolf? That would explain why the superwolf doesn't make what would otherwise be a no-brainer appearance on this album cover. 

#7.   Bettie Serveert - Lamprey

Sure, this kinda looks like a lamprey, in that way that all human arms look like certain kinds of coastal and fresh water eels, but what it truly looks like is the arm snake from Superwolf laying down to take a nap, because it is tired from devouring the superwolf. 

#6.   Blouse - Blouse

Logic then follows that this would be a picture of that exhausted arm snake, fast asleep on its plush, cozy snake bed. Judging by the image, one might think this is a teenage girl arm snake without a job who has time to nap during the day; but that would be sexist, and ageist.

#5.   Spiritualized - Amazing Grace

However, if it were though, that might make this her hairy older brother arm snake. Look at their faces, the familial resemblance is striking.

#4.  Low - Trust

Which would then make this her creepy uncle.

#3.   Letting Up Despite Great Faults - Untogether

If these arms were snakes, they would be Water Moccasins. No question about it.  

#2.   Spoon - Kill the Moonlight

And if these arms were snakes, they would be those gnarly Amazonian snakes that hang from trees, like Kaa from "The Jungle Book." 

But enough about how These Arms Are Snakes let the entire world down. There can be only one true winner here, and that is...

#1.   Iggy Pop - The Idiot

If you think that just because those arms are technically attached to Iggy Pop, that means that they aren't disembodied, you need to read up on your Iggy Pop. Besides, look at them: they are hypnotically distracting. The fact that they can lure the eyes away from the rest of Iggy Pop in the way that they do is a testament to the power they wield on their own. 

Honorable Mention:   Islands - Arm's Way

There's far, far too much nonsense going on in this drawing overall, but Islands, like Godspeed, clearly remembered the name of their own record. Unlike, say, Band of Horses, whose album Infinite Arms, ironically, has infinitely less arms on its cover than this one does. 



Slightly Less Honorable Mention:   Los Campesinos! - Romance is Boring

The peasant farmers from Cardiff got the visual aesthetic right, and an extra point for blood. But, well, legs.