SLEEPING IN TRAFFIC - PART TWO

If I had to name one key difference between this album and Sleeping in Traffic, part 1, it would be the loss of smoothness. Somehow, everything in Part 1 seemed to flow together perfectly, with a fluid silkiness that carried me through the entire album. This album does not quite have that feeling.

This makes Sleeping in Traffic: Part 2 both better and worse than part 1. The betterness of it is that each track has more of an identity, and two of the tracks surpass almost anything in Part 1. The worseness is that the album is much more uneven.

The album basically has four song ranks, and two songs from each rank. The first rank is the useless tracks, these being the two keyboard tracks that bookend that album. They don't really seem to gain any meaning or say anything. Luckily, each is short and their inclusion is barely noticeable.

The next rank is the good songs. These songs are on a slightly lower par than pretty much all of Sleeping in Traffic: Part 1: The Hunter, and Downward Spiral/Chimay. Each is a strong track, but they both overstay their welcome by just a bit, and that overlongness is part of what makes the album feel less fluid than the first.

The third rank are the great songs. These songs are on the same rank as the best songs from Part 1, and they are: Cashflow, and Into the Night. Cashflow is probably the biggest contributor to the disjointed feel of the album, as it is replete with sound effects that sound like they could have come from an SNES game. This is not inherently a bad thing, however, and I actually find the song to be a really fun and catchy track that always gives me a boost of energy.

The standout tracks are South of the Border and the title track. South of the Border is an irreverent, hilarious track about a homophobix homosexual who overcompensates to hide from himself what he truly is, and how he discovered that he was gay. The way the story was told is hilarious, and I laugh every time I hear the song. The way that the band loudly announces with glee, "'cause he was Gaaa-aaa-aaa-aaaa-aaa-aa-aaaay" makes me laugh each time, because of their presentation. Truly a humurous story.

Sleeping in Traffic is another song that doesn't take itself quite seriously, with perhaps some of Beardfish's less emotional and more 'trippy' (think: Supper's Ready) lyrics. It is a journey from bed to a pirate infested beach to a disco club to who knows where, but most importantly, I think it is a journey through insanity. It is not quite a flawless track ... the opening takes a little longer than one might expect to get going, and the ending always drifts away from my consciousness so that I am surprised when I hear the first note of the closing keyboard track. But the middle includes some of Beardfishes hardest rocking and catchiest bits on the album. Definitely a fun, irreverent trip, although even after hearing this song, I must admit I am still puzzled about what the significance of "Sleeping in Traffic" is. It is a phrase that both this album and the first were named after, and the track that matches the name is longer than any other three tracks from those albums put together. So clearly the band felt that there was significance to it, but danged if I have been unable of yet to figure out exactly how it ties in to these two albums. Perhaps I am just reading too much into it.

Overall, this album gets a 4 star rating, with the strong parts counterbalancing the weak to make this album roughly as good as part 1.