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We Are The Last Men on Earth: A Girl Named ...
We Are The Last Men on Earth - A Girl Named Never Review

We Are The Last Men on Earth:
A Girl Named Never

Acoustic Jazz Rock
3.5/5.0

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Unsigned/Self-released
by Craig Hartranft,  08.10.2012

When first spinning We Are the Last Men on Earth's debut disc, A Girl Named Never, I thought it to be some of the saddest music I've ever heard. The first three songs A Girl Named Never, Skinny Sad Girls, and We Used to Kiss are very melancholy and slow. I didn't know whether to bulk up on Zoloft or simply drink myself into a stupor. And there's a few more songs like these later.

We Are the Last Men on Earth was formed by notable Bay Area musician Killian MacGeraghty. He recruited his band via a Craig's List ad stating, "Wanted: Romantic men with romantic instruments for romantic band ... Acoustic instruments only." Generally, most songs have to do with love and woman, so I guess that's where the romance thing comes in. There's also a lot of brass here, trumpet, trombone, flugelhorn, which gives most arrangements a dreamy torch song feel. I guess you call that romantic too. Yet listening to Skinny Sad Girls or the closer Devil Inside, where MacGeraghty, declares, "I just don't believe in love anymore," you know the romance is gone. It's all quite depressing. Well, not all of it.

Pickin' Wheat, Catch and Release, and Trouble are clever tunes with interesting lyrics and some peppy momentum. As an aside, when I first listened to Pickin' Wheat, I was almost positive Killian was saying, "We need lord ... a little more weed, little more weed, little more weed." Now things were coming together: this is music for smoking pot. It couldn't hurt. Later, the sadness returns with Pretty Boy, likely the most grueling and bitter romance song across the whole album.

These thing said, the mixture of acoustic rock with touches of blues, jazz, and Americana music makes A Girl Named Never an interesting endeavor. The depth of songwriting is likely the singular thread that holds the album together. A Girl Named Never is different, definitely an acquired taste.


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In Short

We Are The Last Men on Earth's A Girl Named Never is quirky and strange, melancholy and bitter, acoustic jazz rock waxing eloquent about love and romance.

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