A man should like art. Or, at least, try to like or appreciate art for it is a fact that art lasts forever. Listening to “Blueprints” by Labasheeda made me ponder the true value of art and whether it was all actually in the presentation.
I got to thinking about the meaning of this album. Is it just songs surreptitiously joined together or is there an underlying theme that joins the dots in some metaphorical post rock puzzle? Certainly, there is a deep and dark intensity that pervades all these songs with the guitars providing the almost oppressive framework for these songs. That, as I recall, is the new Labasheeda way and I would suppose that, in bygone days when The Man was merely the enemy rather than your priest, they would have been labelled as a head band and duly adopted by the cheroot chewing coffee shop trendies.
This is, however, the present and the Labasheeda way is less pretentious artistic posturing than a weaponised musical statement written wide in oblique lyrics and angular riffs that wash your ears clean and provide a soundtrack to thought and allow you to ponder the meaning of whatever might mean something to you. A murkiness does indeed pervade everything – as in life – yet this band’s determined artistic stance can take the energy of a song like “Sparkle” and transform it minutes later into the melodic melodrama of “Vanity” and duly take your mind in an entirely different direction.
“Blueprints is an album that manoeuvres itself around you with elements of grunge and even post punk anguish always lifting the music onwards and upwards. I would even say that you need to listen to this album several times to get the most from it. Then again, that’s art for you.