Shelter – "Civilized Man" (1995)

There’s a war in the day

No peace at night

There’s blood on the hands of man

Ieper, Belgium, is referred to as Ypres in most English-language publications.  That’s the French spelling, while Ieper is the Dutch spelling.

Since the city is located in the Flemish half of Belgium – where Dutch is the predominant language – it would seem to make more sense to use the Ieper spelling.

But because the French spelling is more familiar to we English speakers, I will bow to convention and use Ypres.

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There were four major World War I battles fought in the Ypres area.  Those battles resulted in roughly a million soldiers being killed or wounded.  (A previous 2 or 3 lines discussed the three-month-long Third Battle of Ypres – also known as the Battle of Passchendaele – which was by far the bloodiest of the Ypres clashes.)

Ypres was almost completely destroyed in World War I.  Here’s what the city’s most important building – the Cloth Hall, which was completed in 1304 – looked like just before the war broke out:

By the end of World War I, the Cloth Hall had been almost completely destroyed:

Between 1933 and 1967, the Cloth Hall was carefully reconstructed.  Here’s what it looks like today:

Today, the second floor of the Cloth Hall is the site of the In Flanders Fields Museum.

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St. George’s Memorial Church was built in Ypres to commemorate the hundreds of thousands of British Commonwealth soldiers who died near there in World War I.  

As this photo shows, the church contains numerous memorial stained glass windows, banners, brass wall plaques, and kneelers (i.e., cushions on which members of a congregation kneel during prayers):

Here’s a photo of one of the church’s memorial plaques that commemorate the members of a particular regiment who fell at Ypres:

A number of those plaques commemorate the dead graduates of different British schools.  This one commemorates the 144 former students at the Barnard Castle School –“Old Barnardians” – who died in World War I.  (Barnard Castle School, which was founded as an boys-only school in 1883, is located in a small market town in northeastern England.)

Here are photos of some of the more than 150 St. George’s kneelers, most of which are embroidered with the insignia of some of the many different British Commonwealth military units that fought in the Ypres area in World War I:

Here’s the kneeler that honors the Suffolk Regiment, an infantry regiment with a history dating back to 1685 that suffered hundreds of casualties at the Second Battle of Ypres:

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Almost 80 punk bands performed at the three-day Ypres Hardcore Fest last week.  

Shelter, which was the featured band on the festival’s first day, has been referred to as a “Krishnacore” group because of the Hare Krishna-inspired messages in its songs.

Today’s featured song asserts that wars will never end unless “civilized” man stops slaughtering animals for meat:

The meateater kills the cows 
They depersonalize to justify

Their own lust as the helpless die

It’s ironic how we cry for world peace

But the violence won’t decrease
Unless our murders cease

Click here to listen to “Civilized Man.”

Click the link below to order the song from Amazon:

The xx -- "Shelter" (2009)

Maybe I had said something that was wrong

Can I make it better with the lights turned on?

Say what?  (I was expecting the singer to suggest she could make things better with the lights turned off – not on.)  

This is part two of my two-part tribute to bands whose names start and end with the letter "X."  Here's a link to part one, which featured the Los Angeles punk band, X.

The xx is (are?) from London, and its members are all 21 years old, I believe.  This song is from their first CD, xx, which was highly praised by most critics and ended up on a number of "best albums of the year" lists:

xx is the quietest band I've ever heard.  This is music to listen to while wearing a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, although I did recognize one of the songs playing at a J. Crew outlet store I was in a few days ago despite a fair amount of background noise. 

One of the famous jokes in This Is Spinal Tap is that the volume control settings of a standard amplifier goes range from 1 to 10, but the volume controls on Spinal Tap's amplifiers go to 11:

The xx's volume controls must be calibrated in tenths – 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and so on.  When a song starts off quietly, it usually builds in volume – but xx's songs start off quietly and stay there. 

One British reviewer said xx "wouldn't say boo to a goose," and added that "[i]t's tough to think of anything more tender" than this group of shy, polite London schoolmates.  (The members of xx first met at the Elliott School in London, a comprehensive school with a strong tradition in the performing arts whose alums include Pierce Brosnan and Peter Green, the founder of Fleetwood Mac.)  Assuming his characterization is accurate, their music certainly reflects their personalities.

Pierce Brosnan

Another UK reviewer said that "[t]he xx are writing conventional – and very near perfect – pop songs . . . but refusing to indulge in pop's usual kitchen-sink production, and instead using the smallest number of musical elements that can convey the idea."  I think that's very perceptive, although it is hard for me to look behind the idiosyncratic, minimalist production and find the conventional pop songs that are hiding there.  (I'll be interested to see what their second album is like – whether xx is a one-trick pony or not.)

Some reviewers say that xx's music is influenced by contemporary R&B and hip-hop.  I don't get that.  This is not music to which "it's got a good beat and you can dance to it" really applies.  

By the way, the xx appeared in New York City earlier this year with the Swedish band, jj.  Truth is often stranger than fiction, isn't it?

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No one will believe this, but it's true.  When I listened to the song "Infinity" from xx, I was immediately reminded of the dreamy, swirly, bittersweet Chris Isaak song, "Wicked Game," which became a top ten hit after it was featured in the 1990 David Lynch film, Wild at Heart.  A few minutes later, I found a BBC review of the album that made exactly that point and it turns out that a lot of others also noted the resemblance.  One guy went so far as to create a mash-up that combines the two songs.

Click here to listen to "Shelter."  

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.

Remember – turn the volume down when you play "Shelter."  

(That's still too loud – turn it down a little more.)