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Mayapple Weather
We No Longer Believe in
Miracles, We Rely on Them
(Sundays in Spring, 2005)
By Cory Casciato
casciato@mscd.edu

   Does a great song by any other name sound
as sweet?

   Conventional—or at least poetic—wisdom says it would but there’s something about a brilliantly named song that can make a marginal song good, push a good song to greatness, or lift a great song to classic status.

   We No Longer Believe in Miracles, We Rely on Them by Mayapple Weather features a great song with a classic name. The song in question is a rollicking, jumping toe-tapper made of equal parts country, folk and pop. Handclap percussion and a shuffl ing beat drive along acoustic guitar and sad lyrics sung with such exuberance it sounds happy for the fi rst few listens. At just over two minutes long, it is the very defi nition of short and sweet, without a single wasted note or thought.

   Top that off with the name “The World Called Today, They Sounded Pissed” and the result approaches perfection.

    Before it gets there, the EP spends its opening moments establishing its sad-bastard credentials with two tracks of solo acoustic guitar and plaintive singing dusted with a few production tricks and touches of synthesizer. These songs are actually pretty good, but they pale in comparison to“The World Called…” It follows its crown jewel with its second best song, the mundanely titled “So Damn pt1,” another up-tempo number that’s actually quite dour. It never reaches the level set by “The World Called…” but it’s a fi ne song in its
own right that would justify the EP’s existence if needed.

Two slower tracks close out the album, including “So Damn pt2” and the positively languid
“There’s Coal on Your Hands and Diamonds in Her Eyes.” The result is an EP that unwinds like a slow-burning relationship, opening with a quiet, almost shy introduction, blossoming into an ecstatic perfection that’s over before it’s fully embraced and then slowly fades into the distance, full of regret and wishing for more.

 

Download Mayapple Weather’s We
No Longer Believe in Miracles, We
Rely on Them at
http://www.archive.org/details/sis04

 

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