Treephort

Enchanted Forest (2004)

Jim

"I have no fucking clue what is going on with this," those were my exact words when I heard the first track from this album. Somehow, I think this band would probably enjoy hearing that. This band is perhaps better known for their crazy live performance than they are for their recorded material. Nevertheless, here's "Enchanted Forest," the band's Springman debut.

The aforementioned opening track kicks off with a strange synth intro, before breaking into a completely nonsensical, chaotic song. Now, when I say chaotic, I don't mean in a technical, controlled sense, I mean it sounds like a sugary version of The Locust. I expected more of the same, however the next track was mid-tempo rock song with some catchy hooks, or, basically the antithesis of the intro. The next few tracks are in keeping with this, although the band still throws in some synths here and there. However, the seventh track, "The Lawsuit Waiting To Happen" shows of the bands strange tendencies much like "The Enchanted Forest Theme." As the album wore on, I found myself enjoying it more than I had previously expected.

In the lyrical department, Treephort's main weapon is sarcasm, and their target is often their peers. This is readily evident in the song "It Takes Talent To Scream Into A Microphone": "You may say that we suck, you may be wrong; you may be right, but let me tell you something, all you ‘real' musicians, we didn't learn to suck overnight." A lot of what the band has to say is dead on, and they do it masterfully, maintaining a sense of humor even while they are being sharply critical.

For all of their weirdness, Treephort know how to write some really catchy and memorable songs. I didn't expect this to make into any sort of regular rotation in my cd player, but it did. I'm sure some of the content here is going to piss somebody off, and if it does, Treephort will know their efforts were worthwhile.