Number Prophets debut raises questions
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009“There is a central committee in Reykjavik whose responsibility it is to invent new Icelandic words… the Icelandic word for ‘computer’ is tölva, a combination of the words tala (number) and völva (prophet).”
– Deanna Swaney in “Iceland, Greenland & the Faroe Islands”
© 1997 Lonely Planet
I’m not quite certain why, but the Number Prophets find this etymological tidbit highly significant. Look, if any number prophets were living in Iceland, they’d have seen the 2008 financial collapse coming, shorted the Krona, and gotten the hell out of Dodge.
But I digress. Let’s focus on the matter at hand: Simple Songs for Dangerous Times, the non-eponymous debut from the San Francisco-based Number Prophets.
Several years ago, we were all skating this miniramp my bro John-David had in his back yard. It was a pretty sketchy ramp, we were drinking mass quantities of vodka, his dogs kept getting in the way, and I ended up with a cracked rib. Over the next several weeks, I realized that a cracked rib is probably the worst “minor” injury imaginable. Every breath I took was painful. I found no position that alleviated the pain. I couldn’t sleep. I was generally miserable and irratible for six weeks.
I’m pretty sure the Number Prophets have had a cracked rib for the past ten years or so.
This is not a Walking on Sunshine, Good Day Sunshine, Here Comes the Sun kinda disc. This is a dark, brooding, disc. This is the disc to listen to when you’ve watched all the CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and C-SPAN you can take, and you’re mad as hell, and you’re not going to take it anymore. It’s a damn fine album, but it’s not going to spawn the feel-good hit of the summer, ya dig?
Check it out, but up your dosage first. Five stars.
