The Donkeys
s/t
(Antenna Farm Records) 2006

"All my friends are dead. They seep slowly in my head" [to a waltz]

Technically, given the passion I feel for The Donkeys debut LP, this should be my final review ever. I am prepared to unleash every nestled fragment of positive verbiage on this album - the desire to have this album heard by everyone within earshot backing my own amazement. It's just that damn good. Ten songs, forty minutes and so very, very pleasant. Well, as for cleaning out the superlative toy chest on this album - I'm not going to do that. It would be tacky -- but do know that I could have.

In case you skipped the opening statement - I really like this band. See, The Donkeys diversity on this album is - as some have said - "to die for". These 4 guys (producer Jason Quever as the underwritten fifth Donkey) have captured to tape sounds / influence / emotions from every corner of the musical hemisphere - to label or tag this album in one single category would be pointless³. You will hear something new on each of the 10 tracks - whether a new approach in songwriting, style or direction totally - making the entire album genuinely refreshing. You know that feeling you get sometimes when you take a sip of a cool drink on an exhaustingly hot day, and you can feel the coolness all they way down to your stomach - like the whole way down? Yeah? Well that's just how The Donkeys make these 40 minutes feel.

Though 'effortless' may seem like a neutral term to attach here, these guys do make this album stuff sound easy - but that likely just goes back to how refreshingly stellar it all is. From the relaxed timing of "Black Cat" to the "please don't eat me if you could / I ain't no red ridinghood" pleads of opener "She's a Wolf" right into the morbid curiosities that cradle "Blood Hill" - you just could not go wrong losing yourself inside this album. There's even a voiceless intermission that goes by "Lower the Heavens", giving you the clever opportunity to zap your PRAM before ingesting the equally mesmerizing second half of The Donkeys. I wish I could take credit for how unique this album is, yet I am just a listener - that reclusive fan who longs to face each member directly and parade them with praise.

"dolphins make good friends, but sharks give you the truth in the end".

Yes - indeed. The Donkeys - not to be confused with the mule that graces that wonderful Wolfkings album.

kaleb hitchcock :: (from thee June of O'Six)
³: hints of dios [malos] debut LP, Badly Drawn Boy [on "Lower the Heavens], le Papercuts, Last of the Blacksmiths, the 4 guys that back Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, that instrument named Rhodes & your new favorite album for the Summer of '06 are sprinkled within. "No need for oxygen".