Radical Face
"Glory"
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It starts with a little whistle. And a tinkling piano. And what sound like tiny footsteps. And then Ben Cooper's bedroom symphony "Glory," an ode to the brand of hangover that comes with a way-shattered heart, begins its slow march toward crescendo. "Split my skull/ Reached inside my head/ Pulled out the pictures/ I wished that I'd forget," sings Cooper, Radical Face's only main member (he's also Electric President), as an acoustic guitar and drums join the march. The verse ends, the female-voiced ah-ahh-ooh-ooohs kick in, and Cooper takes us to "the rooftop's edge/ The muddy street/ Beneath my swollen head," as the lockstep guitar and drums resume the beat. It's a one-man trail of tears, a "walking open wound," as Chris Carrabba might put it, and that's before Cooper gets to the bird-caught-in-the-wires-and-I'm-not-tall-enough-to-help analogy. By 5:20, when the company front — guitar feedback, synths, angelic backing vocals, crashing cymbals — kicks in all epic and histrionic and maudlin, you can feel Cooper's cottonmouth; his throbbing temples are your own. You want to put your hand on his shoulder. You want to say, "C'mon man, hair of the dog, dude." And you know that's not gonna make it any better.
"Glory" appears on Radical Face's new Ghost (Morr Music) and can be streamed at www.morrmusic.com.
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