Copeland – Beneath Medicine Tree CD

The Militia Group 2003

Wow. This is a seriously sensitive album. So sensitive in fact, that when I listen to it at the section M offices, I’m a little bit afraid and embarrassed that someone might catch me. Still, I keep playing it because unlike so many other “sensitive” bands of the moment - trendy emo boys with their sheepdog locks who wear their hearts on their sleeve as a fashion pose - Copeland is absolutely real. You can just tell somehow that lead singer Aaron Marsh really, truly means every word, every note, and that there’s no faking it: his sadness, his search for meaning, and his ultimate strength are absolutely sincere. And that sincerity makes all the difference.

It helps too that this album is filled with lush, watery arrangements, and that the harmonies are so crisp and angelic that they resonate in the listeners chest, creating the sensation of melancholy all by themselves. Most of the songs here are made up of these ripe and symphonic arrangements, reminiscent of lesser known band, Last Days of April, and sometimes remind me of one of my favorite Brit-pop bands of the early nineties, Trash Can Sinatras. But it’s the more sparse tracks that really bite at the innards. “California”, an acoustic track with organ-like keyboards, that eventually builds to what is the most driving rock of the whole album, nonetheless evokes loneliness and loss exquisitely. The very first track, “Brightest” - a Dashboard-esque piano-and-vocals track - is so earnest and heartbreaking that sometimes, when everyone has gone home, I’ll put it on full blast, put my head up to the speakers, and just let myself bask in all that sensitivity.

- Michael Houghton