With the month of January just a few weeks old, fans of Circa Survive front man Anthony Green can say that they have already been blessed with “Beautiful Things” this year.
Green released “Beautiful Things,” his second solo album and first since the summer of 2008, on Tuesday, Jan. 17. As with his first album, “Avalon,” Green’s new album features backing band Good Old War. The album also debuted at the No. 27 position on the Billboard 200 chart.
The 13-track basic version of the album features a nice mixture of songs, ranging from the fast-paced track “Get Yours While You Can” to the heart-warming track “James’ Song,” written for Green’s young son James, born in October of 2010.
As is the usual with Green’s work, every song features passionate lyrics that listeners can easily relate to their own lives. The song “Do It Right,” for example, features the lines “Better get your life together, better do it right. Make sure that everyone that you love in your life knows it.” The song itself is only slightly longer than two minutes long but in that time, Green stresses the importance of living a good life and appreciating the people in it.
Perhaps the most fast-paced track on the album is “Can’t Have It All At Once,” the sixth song on the album. The song features a catchy chorus and the lyrics lean toward stressing patience and understanding. As we all know, the things in life we want don’t always happen all at once – they take time.
Prior to the release of “Beautiful Things,” Green posted short videos on his website that discussed the meaning or inspiration for each song. When it came to “Can’t Have It All At Once,” Green said that the track was his “favorite song on the album.”
“The last minute of the song is my favorite thing that I’ve listened to so far on the album,” Green said in the video. “It’s probably the most important song to me.”
Another song from the album that many will love is titled “Big Mistake.” As Green puts it in another video on his site, “it’s like another one of those songs that’s on the pile of getting in a stupid argument with somebody and then writing it.” The song has more of a hip-hop feel to it than other tracks but the message is still clear.
By now, it should be clear that so many of the lyrics Green writes are personal. It takes time to adjust to the role of fatherhood. Getting into a fight with someone can always be looked at as a mistake. Green puts it on track No. 11, “the whole world revolves around James.”
Just as a book has the power to draw you in with strong opening chapters and a well thought-out conclusion, “Beautiful Things” has that same ability. The opening track “If I Don’t Sing” features Green discussing what his life would be like and how unhappy he would be without music. For a man with such a majestic voice, this track is a perfect precursor to the 12 songs that follow.
The ending track “Lullaby” is exactly what it sounds like and is the perfect outro. The line “Beautiful things are coming,” perfectly sums up Green’s second album.
For true fans of Green who want more bang for their buck, the deluxe version of the album includes a jaw-dropping 21 songs: the 13 songs recorded by Green and Good Old War plus four bonus tracks and four demos.
The bonus tracks feature Chino Moreno from The Deftones (“Right Outside”), Nate Ruess from fun. (“Only Love”) and Ida Maria (“Can’t Be Satisfied”), all of whom help to take the album to an entirely different level. There is also a fourth bonus track titled “Soul 4 My Soul” which features backing vocals from Circa Survive Colin Frangicetto. Green also offers listeners demo versions of four songs that appear on the album, tracks that showcase the vocalist’s raw and intense vocalists in a rough format.
With such a diverse listing of songs on this album, those who love Green’s voice and enjoyed his first solo album “Avalon” will undoubtedly want to pick up “Beautiful Things.” If his name is unfamiliar to you, still give his work a chance. You may just be turned onto a work of art that some would call “perfection.”
