Last Chance – Idiot Pilot(rough post)

This week, I analyzed Last Chance by the Bellingham duo Idiot Pilot. Last Chance is off of Idiot Pilot’s 207 album “Wolves” and was produced by Ross Robinson (Glassjaw, At The Drive In) and Mark Hoppus (member of blink-182 and +44).

This Bellingham duo has always been a little hard to define. When Daniel Anderson and Michael Harris were in high school all they wanted to do was play in a band. They tried as hard as they could to get a group together, but no one who was close to their age wanted to play their type of music. They decided that if no one wanted to be in their band, then they would have to create one. The boys started to use computers to create the backing tracks to their songs. Their combination of Alternative Rock, Electronica, and Post-Hardcore music garnered them quite a following in the Northwest music scene in early 2000’s. Their self-produced debut, Strange We Should Meet Here, attracted attention from the major labels and the group eventually signed with Reprise Records. And that brings us to Last Chance and Wolves.

Although this album had some bigger name producers, a majority of the album was still produced by the band. The addition of consistent drummer Chris Pennie adds a percussive dimension to this album that their previous effort lacked.

Last Chance starts the same way a lot of Idiot Pilot tracks do. With some ambiance. Then we get the electronic sound we’re used to from Idiot Pilot with Harris’ melancholy vocals over. Harris sings in a baritone style at first with a falsetto harmony backing him up. Daniel Anderson really creates a whole landscape with the electronic backing track, matching the mood of Harris’s vocals quite nicely.

The verse leads into a bombastic chorus with Harris’ vocal soaring over the distorted guitar and the live drum track. Anderson keeps the keyboard and electric strings sounds going throughout the chorus, and it really adds a nice familiar ambiance, so the verse and chorus don’t sound worlds apart.

Back in the verse, Anderson keeps it interesting by having the keyboards interleave behind the vocal and programmed drums. Still the programmed strings hod it down behind everything.

The bridge is mainly bass driven, first starting with a bass keyboard until it hands it off to an electric bass which then crescendos into the final chorus.