Soundtrack of Our Lives

Certain Songs #2404: The Soundtrack of Our Lives – “Throw It To The Universe”

July 21, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Throw It To The Universe
Year: 2012

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After the deep well of psychedelic goodness that was Communion, there was little chance that the follow up, 2012’s Throw It To The Universe, was going to be as strong.

And I’m guessing that they knew it, as well, as Throw It To The Universe ended up being their final album, 16 years after their first got together. Like R.E.M. when they recorded Collapse into Now, TSOOL knew they were recording their final album, unlike R.E.M., that fact was part of the promotion of the album.

Certain Songs #2403: The Soundtrack of Our Lives – “The Passover”

July 20, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Communion
Year: 2008

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And so how did The Soundtrack of Our Lives end their greatest, grandest, most anthemic album? With a great, grand anthemic sing-along song, “The Passover.”

Musically, “The Passover” is one of the sparser songs on the album: the guitars are mostly acoustic, the drums just keeping the beat, the keyboards twinkling off in the distance, and yet still both great and grand.

Certain Songs #2402: The Soundtrack of Our Lives – “Saturation Wanderers”

July 19, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Communion
Year: 2008

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It has struck me that The Soundtrack of Our Lives might have been a bigger band here if they hadn’t had such godawful album covers. I mean, look at that image. In a 2009 interview with Brooklyn Vegan when TSOOL lead singer Ebbot Lundberg was asked who they were and what they were drinking, this was his answer: “Suicide drinks. They are on their way back to Sirius or Orion. These people represent the alienation. The fruit of corporocracy. The living dead.”

Certain Songs #2401: The Soundtrack of Our Lives – “Flipside”

July 18, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Communion
Year: 2008

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Apparently The Soundtrack of Our Lives had originally planned to follow up 2005’s Origin, Vol 1 with, you know, Origin Vol 2.

But they decided not to do that, forever leaving Origin Vol 1 an orphan. That said, while songs earmarked for Origin Vol 2 made it on to 2006’s odd-and-sods A Present From The Past, all of the songs on Communion were written specifically for it, which is kind of amazing, given that there are 24 tracks on it. As always, the best songs on it were conglomerations of a few different things, like “Flipside,” which reminds of a lost Who song recorded around the time of Tommy but left off cos it didn’t fit the story.

Certain Songs #2400: The Soundtrack of Our Lives – “Fly”

July 15, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Communion
Year: 2008

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Nick Drake was such a specific-sounding artist that covering him seems like a fools errand. Luckily, the members of The Soundtrack of Our Lives were exactly the kind of fools to run that errand. And I’m glad, because their cover of his 1970 song “Fly” is one of the greatest covers I’ve ever heard in my life, even if they don’t so much cover “Fly” as smash it into a windscreen.