The Way Out - The Books

I've read in more than one place that The Way Out is "another Books album, and that's all you need to know," or something along those lines. It's true that the Books have consistently delivered amazing material every time they've released a record, so it's fair to expect another strong effort from their latest release. It's also true that they have a singular, characteristic sound that makes every Books album instantly identifiable as theirs. However, this is NOT just another Books album. NO Books album is just another Books album. Every record they've released has been unique to the ones that came before it, building and expanding on past elements of their sound, breaking apart other elements, and bringing in new ideas that the band has conceived and encountered along the way.

In the case of The Way Out, one of the most important of these new ideas for the Books is hypnotherapy. At a Books show at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art in 2009, Nick Zammuto, one half of the band, explained that the duo had discovered and gotten heavily into hypnotherapy, and that this had heavily influenced their forthcoming album. Of course, he meant that they had been listening to recordings of hypnotherapy, not that he and fellow Book Paul de Jong had undertaken hypnotherapy themselves. Their discovery is indeed evident on the album in question, and the recurring spoken hypnosis extracts have a way of making the listener part of the experience. The Way Out is also harder than much of the Books' previous work; there's an edge to it that distinguishes it from earlier Books music, particularly evident on tracks like "I Am Who I Am" and the hilarious "A Cold Freezin' Night."

But whatever can be said about it, all that really matters is that when you sit down and play The Way Out, it's an absolutely amazing listen, a truly moving experience. As always, their music is overflowing with beauty, imagination, humor, and optimism. So yeah...just another Books album.

[Listen to The Way Out at Grooveshark.com]