Life Like is Joan of Arc distilled down to/embracing its rock essence.
Gone from the band s music (for now) are the electronics and layers upon layers of tracks. Gone from their liner notes are an
extensive list of musicians and instruments. Instead, Life Like is the result of four men adhering to Thoreau’s famous principle,
“Simplify, simplify, simplify!”
But, when it comes to Joan of Arc, even “simple” isn’t an entirely straightforward concept.
Judging only by the record’s impeccable guitar-bass-drum interplay, it might be hard to imagine that Life Like was entirely
conceived with one less member than Joan of Arc ultimately entered the studio with.
After recording October’s two-song Meaningful Work 7" as a trio, frontman Tim Kinsella, drummer Theo Katsaounis, and bassist
Bobby Burg (Love of Everything, Vacations, Chin Up Chin Up) welcomed guitarist Victor Villarreal (Owls, Cap’n Jazz, Ghosts and
Vodka) into the fold shortly before leaving on a month-and-a-half tour of the U.S. and Europe.
Friends since childhood, Villarreal and Kinsella re-connected during Cap’n Jazz’s reunion tour and this marks the first collaboration
between them since the 2001 self-titled Owls album.
After years of being away from music, being on tour with Cap n Jazz renewed Villarreal s enthusiasm for joining a new band. As
such, this new chapter in his musical career became one for Joan of Arc as well.
Although Life Like’s nine tracks had essentially already been written as a three-piece effort, Villarreal was quickly taught the
structure of the new songs and allowed to work out his parts while performing each night.
A prominent example of Villarreal’s influence comes in the opening seconds of the album s first single, Love Life." Bolstered by
his signature characteristic of doubling the speed of an existing riff, the track showcases the hyper-meticulous style of playing found
on Owls songs.
And so, show by show, Life Like s other eight songs underwent similar transformations while the band was on the road. Villarreal
improvised his parts live each night, with each new performance building on the last, while the other three members re-arranged
their contributions during sound checks and traded ideas for improvements back and forth on the van rides between shows.
After playing 20 concerts in 20 days on European soil, the band returned home on a Tuesday night and then on Thursday morning -
before the jet lag could even wear off – entered Chicago s Electrical Audio with Steve Albini (who has previously engineered
records for two other Kinsella projects: Owls and Make Believe).
Five days later they emerged with Life Like.
Although thoroughly exhausting, this hectic schedule was actually beneficial — as Kinsella reveals “it removed all threats of
cleverness from our critical faculties” and required the band to stick to strictly recording the new tracks as they had been played live.
And yet, as Life Like proves, even when they’re working solely with the basics – guitar, bass, and drums – Joan of Arc still has the
power to wring new sounds from the same old rock band machinery.