Review: Rainer Maria

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Rainer Maria
““Anyone in Love with You (Already Knows)”
(Polyvinyl)

Rainer Maria’s sound captures what emo sounded like before it crept onto MTV.  It’s pretty, climactic, and powerful, and on this latest release, a live cd/dvd combo, they show us what they’re made of.  The sound quality on both discs are really good, which is already a good start for a live release.  The CD is a greatest hits of sorts and is taken from live performances between 2001 and 2003.

It opens with ‘“Tinfoil’,” which is by far the best song on the album.  With dual vocals, Cathlain De Marrais and Kyle Fischer harmonize perfectly and sound like a finely tuned Cap’n Jazz.   Other standout tracks are “Mystery and Misery” from “Long Knives Drawn” and the poppy “The Contents of Lincoln’s Pockets” from “A Better Vision of Me.”   There are a couple of tracks that suffer from the live recording, but overall, it worked out pretty good.

The DVD was recorded at a performance in South Carolina in 2003 and contains about half of the songs that are on the CD, and the other half are again, from their various albums.  This release has some good stuff on it, but is probably more for people who are already fans of Rainer Maria, because a live album usually isn’t the way to go when hearing something for the first time.