Casey Crescenzo "Amour & Attrition"

This was my first venture into crowdfunding.  I was so blown away by The Dear Hunter's last album I was roused enough to go backwards into the band's catalog (a very rare occurrence, indeed) and discover a phenomenal rock opera released over 9 EPs that I took the bait on band leader Casey Crescenzo's project "to write and record a Symphony with a full orchestra...consisting of  4 movements...".  $35 got me a digital download and a high quality double LP.  I didn't pay much attention to the occasional updates until the one announcing the project's completion and due date of my download....which had a glitch on my first attempt that yielded nothing.  Maybe I should have taken that as an omen.  Once said snafu was corrected, I began my initial play through the computer.  By God, he literally meant symphony.  My bad that I anticipated some sort of rock orchestration, not an Elfman soundtrack.  I don't mean that in a derogatory way.  Danny Boingo has made quite the bankroll doing non-confrontational scores since shutting down the band.  Crescenzo is now heir apparent.  This is 36 minutes of acceptable classical music.  I was exposed to classical as a child since my maternal grandmother played it around her house along with Big Bands and the Crooners.  I developed an appreciation of it in college at WPRK as classical was the only programming students got paid to play.  My blog's header picture is from a classical show circa 1978.  Mostly it was vinyl but some of the operas were played on the reel to reel players behind me.  You see the binder on one of them.  That was a pronunciation guide to assure the names were announced properly.  Nothing worse than a call from one of the hoity-toity shop owners on Park Ave without enough customers to occupy themselves, bitching about a kid saying "Richard" instead of "Ree-kard" Strauss or "Wagner" in lieu of "Vahg-ner."  Just like my taste in contemporary music, I mostly enjoyed the lesser known works, not the classic Classics.  Mrs. Rocker was surprised that I was playing A & A in my vehicle but unapologetic at requesting a genre shift.  "Makes me want to see a movie," she said...


It's worth going to YouTube to see a couple of the comments on this.  "Learn some music theory and then perhaps you should attempt to write a symphony...," says one dude.  "So how about instead of critiquing his music because he doesn't abide by the laws you learn in an introductory theory course, go on and actually learn more about music and its development," is another's reply.  Classical Sniping...I love it! 

All in all, Amour & Attrition is a pleasant listen.  Would I have donated 35 bills had I known this was what I was getting? 

Uh-uh...