And to think, one of the greatest albums of all time was right under your nose.

There's no real way for me to start this blog. I intend to review "In the Aeroplane Over The Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel. I'd like to get you to read it with a strong hook that makes you want to find out about the greatest band you've never heard of. But that would be inappropriate, I mean, Neutral Milk Hotel never relied on strong hooks to get people listening. They were about being raw, and more importantly, they were about outstanding writing. So I'll try and write this as well as I can.

The first track, "the King of Carrot Flowers Part One" opens the cd with a powerful F chord. Now, this is NMH's second album, but for most, as it was mine, this is the first song of theirs you hear, because this is the cd so often recommended. And if this is your first taste of Neutral Milk Hotel, you recognize right away that they are like nothing you've ever heard. A simple chord progression, and only Jeff Mangums voice, dubbed ever so slightly so that it sounds as if there are two of him. It's soothing, yet attention drawing.

Praising Jesus is kind of like indie music suicide. I don't know why, or why that's the standard for indie music, but that's just kind of the way it is. But that really doesn't stop Jeff Mangnum. He's fearless and blunt in "The King of carrot Flowers Parts 2 and 3" literally bellowing "I Love you Jesus Christ". You have to respect a songwriter who's really not trying to please anyone, but simply writing what he feels. It is a bit funny though, even in Christian Rock, it's a bit more subtle than "I Love you Jesus Christ".

The title track (which I remind you is "In the Aeroplane Over The Sea") is kind of like the marquee song on the cd. The Chord Progression isn't strange, in fact it's very common, and Jeff Mangum's voice really isn't that great, and the horn player isn't playing anything spectacular, and the fuzzy bass, well, really isn't anything but fuzzy. But none of that really, matters, because when it all comes together, alongside lyrics the likes of which you've never heard, it's one of the most beautiful things put to record. Some singers tell a story when they sing, but Mangum seems to sing of many stories, all seamless and moving as one song. this is also the first song on the track where The Diary of Anne Frank is a theme. Anne Frank is a recurring theme throughout this cd. On this track it's very subtle (Anna's ghost all around/Hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me) but it becomes far more obvious later on.

The next track, "Two Headed Boy" is another two part song on the cd, but the second part is the last track, so I'll get to that later, but this is another song that kind of tells a story, this one a bit more distinct (though at the same tame, not at all). Mangum sings of a two headed boy, living in a jar in a dark lab somewhere, building a radio made just for two people to hear, he, and his lover. The story sounds very clear cut, but at the same time, what the hell could that mean? Could the Two Headed Boy be Anne Frank again, closed off from the outside world? Maybe the two headed boy is an Allegory ("Which head do you think with?)" or maybe the jar represents a barrier between two people. Behind the glass, you look so close...but you're so far away.

"The Fool" is one of my favorite tracks. It wasn't when I first heard it, because it's completely instrumental. The clear cut strength of this band is song writing, and their powerful lyrics, so purposefully take that away is stupid, I thought. The song kind of sounds like a Salvation Army trumpet quartet trying to convince a group of middle schoolers to pick up the oboe. But there's just something about it that comforts. It doesn't soothe like the first three songs do, but it swoops down like Clark Kent and tells you everything's going to be all right.

Remember when I said the Anne Frank stuff wouldn't be so subtle eventually? Yeah, well, the next song is called "Holland, 1945", and that really kinda just spills it out there. This song is definitely one of the more well written songs, but other than that, it's way more up beat and a much faster tempo than any other song on the album, and it's placed very well. I don't want to say he made this a "fun" song because it's very morbid...but under any other circumstances it'd be fun. ( But now we must pack up every piece/Of the life we used to love /Just to keep ourselves/At least enough to carry on)

Now, this next song (Communist Daughter)...I'm not sure how to explain how this song is great without getting in some kind of trouble, so I'm just going to go all out and get yelled at, because I think this is beautiful and I'm going to stand by it. This genderless character lives in this place, with cocoa leaves everywhere, among the mountains, bridges bursting and twisting around, and to prove that this character still exists, she masturbates, and her semen stains the mountains. Mangum's use of sex in this song is far more admireable than todays chart toppers, and it's thought provoking, and I really like it. Now, bear in mind, that's only my interpretation of what Jeff Mangum is singing to me. I've discussed this song with a friend, and he sees this totally differently.

"Oh Comely" is by far the longest track at 8:20, and seems to be four songs ripped and pulled apart to make one. Comely means pretty, but the character spoken of seems to be anything but that. The thing about this song is that it's kind of like a Frankenstein's Monster. Verses from several different unreleased songs were mashed and mangled to make sense in this 8 minute super song. The first part is about this terrible father, it could be implied that he is cheating ( Your father made fetuses/ With flesh licking ladies/ While you and your mother/Were asleep in the trailer park). The second verse goes back to the Anne Frank theme again, with Jeff wishing he "could save her in some sort of time machine...know all your enemies". The actual recording of this song has an interesting story behind it though. NMH worked in maybe-not-the-best studio, and the equiptment wasn't always up to snuff, so they had to test everything out, and on one such test Jeff played Oh Comely. He was only going to play the first part, but it was going great and he kept going. He ended up playing the whole song, with the entire band and producers in awe, at the very end of the song Scott Spillane, the trumpet player screams "hollyyyyy ****!". This recording ended up being the one that made the cd, and if you listen carefully you can hear Spillane.

Ghost at one point was a two part song, but because of NMH's short lived, um, career I guess, the second part was never actually put on any CD (you can find it on the internet though, it's called "My Dreamgirl don't exist). There's more Anne Frank here too, with mention of a girl being born in a bottle rocket in 1929, which is when Anne Frank was born. This song is kind of like a Venn Diagram put to music, because we get a side by side view of the present, and simpler times by analyzing tragedies, comparing them and contrasting them. Drummer Jeremy Barnes says he saw a fire in new york city once, and this song always reminds him of that.

The 10th track is untitled, and it's another one of those instrumental only songs. I've gotta be honest though, I don't have anything deep or artsy fartsy to say, only this. This song features a bag pipe. Neutral Milk Hotel made a freaking bag pipe cool. A bag pipe.

"Two Headed Boy Part II" is the last song on the track, and like Aeroplane, it is one of the lovlier songs I've ever heard. The Anne Frank theme hits a climax (And in my dreams, you're alive, and you're crying), and we're returned to the boy in the jar, who's lover feeds him radio wire for their magic radio, and tomatoes. Jeff has to warn the boy though, "Don't hate her when she gets up to leave" What else is she to do, you live in a jar!

If you do give this cd a listen, I urge you to actually give the entire cd a listen straight through. Right now a lot of cd singles of CD’s are fine standing alone, but with Aeroplane each song builds on one another and it makes the cd so good.

IN AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA: *****