We Were Enchanted

by Roommate

We Were Enchanted cover art
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about

The album title, We Were Enchanted, holds all the keys. It starts with fantasy not as escapism but introspection and ends with a promising new direction for groupthink. Lambert finds enchantment not in fantasy outside of reality but in the strange fantasies that teem beneath reality, the oozing stuff that dreams are made of. To explore this territory on a purely personal level is indulgent in an honorable enough, sabbatical-type way but to join with a host of peers in mining those depths for some kind of transcendent commonality, some communion, some community…that shit’s dangerously close to sublime.

-Chet Betz, Cokemachineglow (from Roommate’s #17 listing in CMG’s Top 50 Albums of 2008)

credits

released 15 April 2008
All songs by Kent Lambert (ASCAP) except “Night” by Cody Hennesy.
String arrangements by Erica Dicker except “Last dreams of summer” by Erica Dicker and Keith Lawrence.

Produced in Chicago between November 2006 and October 2007 by Gerard Barreto, Seth Vanek, Kent Lambert, Justin Petertil, Luther Rochester, Jamie Carter and Todd Leibov at Roommate HQ, the Ice Factory, Milquetoast Sounds, Three Pear Studios, Carterco Recording, the Compound, and the Mix Suite. Mastered by Carl Saff.

Artwork by Dean Rank.

tags

tags: rock art pop art rock groove prog pop stoner Chicago

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about

Roommate began as a Kent Lambert solo project in NYC in 2000 and has been an ever-mutating Chicago band since 2004. The ... more band's third album Guilty Rainbow was released in March 2011. Cokemachineglow praised it as a "monumental accomplishment" in its Top 50 Albums of 2011 and Tiny Mixtapes called it "one of those rare albums that starts out great and gets better over its 45-minute length." less

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Track Name: Day After
We laughed so much our chests caved in
our stomachs ruptured
Some kind of rapture
like in scripture

We cried so much we thought we'd drown
We thought we'd perish
withered pale and hairless
naked and embarrassed

But instead
we washed up on gentle shores
our wounds healed and sealed
and our bones restored

We ate and ate until we could eat no more
We drank and drank until we drink no more
We slept and slept until we could sleep no more
We dreamt until there was no morning
We dreamt until there was no morning
We dreamt until there was no mourning.
Track Name: We Were Enchanted
It's been happening a lot lately
just before I wake up
I see the most terrible things--
School buses exploding
volcanos erupting from the tops of skyscrapers
moustaches dripping with blood

The kid's playing video games
he's probably been up all night
He's mumbling something about potions and daggers
he's firing missiles into corpses

He says that the ghost in the kitchen
keeps turning the microwave on
Is that you funny monkey?
Where'd you learn to do that?
Please don't teach the new cat

Someday we'll let the machines
do everything, everything
Someday we'll never complain

And our most talented friends
will wake up and work again, work again
Shake shake shake their skinny fists again

The old man tried to kill the curse
but he only made it worse
He left us with a song and dance
he left us, he left us, he left us with a heart attack

A mother in the hospital
a sister in the grave
A brother in a supermax
with no one to save him and no one to save
The kid's teacher tells him this is not the golden age

Something tells me that there was never a golden age
never a golden age

Someday the oil will run out
and airplanes forever will be grounded
We will learn to survive from the neighbor's garbage

Troubled heads will prevail
with songs that shimmer and wail
Kings of pain will reign via email
Like all the other kings they will fail.

Funny monkey, come haunt us again
attack us, distract us with your gale force winds
Bring us a virus, unite us in irrational fear
Bring us a mandate and some band-aids and a six-pack of beer
Bring us something to make us think of something else
Bring us medicine but don't bring us health
Bring us money but don't bring us wealth
Bring us something else, something else

It's been happening a lot lately
just before I fall asleep
I see the most beautiful things

The kid's playing video games
with a glint in his eyes like flint in a brushfire
He's singing along to some secondhand song
He's flying a Porsche through a gorgeous sunset

There is beauty all around
Even when we wandered in a terrible trance
We could feel the romance

We made such magical sounds
as we climbed from terraces verdant and rancid
We were enchanted.
Track Name: Way Out
It's raining, it's raining and the sun is out
There is fever, there is fever in the town
There are fires in the castle and all around
There is cancer, there is cancer in my house

Bone doctor says I'm in trouble
That I should save for medicine
Witch doctor pulled me from the rubble
He saved my life then made a deathmask from my skin

You're crying, you're crying and your hair is down
There is fighting, there is fighting in the street
There are soldiers in the schoolhouse and underground
There's a pile of flesh and flowers at your feet

Town cryer says we're in trouble
That we should run toward the sun
Crooks and liars, picks and shovels
We'll leave them all behind before this day is done

I'm floating, I'm floating over angry crowds
There is magic, there is magic in the sky
Will you find me in my tiny corner of the clouds?
I'll be waiting with my hands over my eyes

Ringbearer, bring another eulogy
Make it short and sweet and pretty, get it right this time
Wayfarer, burn another effigy
Make a show of it
They won't be getting over this, not tonight
Get on with it
Keep the bonfires lit, all right
All right.
Track Name: New Steam
Newsman
Sing me the blues, man
Please don't cry

I've seen the images
I've heard the screams
I need you to tell me how to feel about the whole thing, yeah?

It's all so horrible
I'm inconsolable
Why don't you sing me something anyway, yeah?

Sing me a lullaby
I'd like to sleep tonight
I've been staring at the news for five days

Newswoman
There's a bad storm coming
Don't look so afraid

You've got a tidy script
You'd be wise to stick to it
We know that we'll be fucked when we wake up
But please just tell us we'll be safe, yeah

We'll all be watching you
So sing us a tune or two
Isn't that what you get paid so much to do, yeah?

Sing us a lullaby
We just might sleep tonight
Maybe we can dream the news away, yeah
Maybe we can dream the news away, yeah
Maybe we will dream the news away.
Track Name: Tea Leaves
You've got it really good
at least that much is understood

You've got a lot of nerve
to say I don't deserve you

Did I hurt you
when I conquered all the earth for you
when I signed my life in blood to you
when I swallowed up the flood and struck the thunder of our love

We've got everything to lose
we've got papercuts and bruises
and constitutional abuses
in this the palace of our choosing

We could flee this dynasty
in paper wigs and latex faces
we could hide in distant places
places we once promised we'd destroy

We'll kill the killjoys
and sell the story to the tabloids
they'll sift for glory through the boring details
the gory details of our love

I've read the tea leaves
and I know that you will never leave me
and even though I know you won't believe me
I know I know I know I know I know I know we'll never die

The gods will find us
and with their sacraments they'll bind us
and they will cast our love behind us
leaving nothing to remind us
that we were once the greatest lovers in the world

They will cast our love behind us
leaving nothing to remind us
that we were once the greatest lovers in the world.
Track Name: Last Dreams Of Summer
Rise and shine my friend
It's your birthday--the first day of summer
Yeah, the world's getting dumber
but don't you stop getting smart

It might be news to you
that you are no one until someone makes you
I know you've been waiting to break through
Try not to break apart

Get your best guitar
and take your mother's car
up to the lake house
Get the lead out--
your new friends are expecting you

You won't sleep tonight--
as long as there's light you'll be singing
The songs you're bringing will drown out the howls
of the midnight sun

Sing your best for them--
let them see the fear and hear the love
You'll never work again
if you can show them what you're made of

All your city friends
will spin and spin and spin and spin you into legend
They will close their eyes
and proselytize
as waste flames light up the sky

Rise and shine my friend
In this riverbed you are born again
On this mountain of garbage
such beautiful grasses grow

Scale the canyon wall
From the cliffs you will see
how a great city falls into ruin
In that crater of fire there soon will be
mountains of snow

In your second life
you're a siren song of awkward sex
And it's a putrid rain
that beats against your glory chest

You are sick with rage
waiting for the scene to render
Don't you close your eyes
when the dragons fly
and fake names light up the sky

In your dreams tonight
you will suffer salvation by candlelight
and I will tell you
that in hell there are worse things than fire

And the ghost brigades
in their slow parade
up to heaven
They will sing with a fury
that only the Lord can inspire

We are young and strong
and death is whistling through the trees
It's a stupid song
but still it brings us to our knees

We are sick with rage
waiting for the light to change
We'd better close our eyes.
Track Name: Night (Rhombus cover)
It is the night
It is the night
It is the night come in the afternoon

We are the flies
We are the flies
We're always flying over your dead bodies

Because we're all real tired of me
We're real tired of the shitty stuff
Well let's eliminate the downtime and the throw-up
Let's fool ourselves again

Well let's eliminate the temple and the anchor
and the hooks that don't sink in
Because we're all real tired of me

We're real tired of the city...
Track Name: Isn't Radio
You can keep your cheap nostalgia
You can keep your lucky pen
Never mind what your parents called you
You're a fine little specimen

Who will you regale with your family folk-tales
now that the radio ran away?

(and a sunset blaze fades to smoke trails)

You could take to the streets
You could take to the shadows
You could fake like you've taken your own life
and you could hide in Colorado
or really anywhere the wind don't blow
go, go go go go make your way past the border patrol and into Mexico!

At the top of the mountain your brain turns to cotton
and your veins turn to ice
Transmitters are on but the songs are long forgotten
These bone-tired anthems will have to suffice
stone-fired anthems will have to suffice

It isn't radio but it almost sounds like
what radio used to sound like
long ago

A schoolboy's magic show in a field of candy
Mouths foaming and bodies slamming
and hearts aglow

It isn't radio
it's a brokedown torch song
buried under a stamped-out campfire
It's the last hot coal

It's isn't radio but it almost sounds like
what radio used to sound like
long ago.