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The Ladybug Transistor

Can't Wait Another Day

By Ben Westhoff

Published: June 14, 2007

The Ladybug Transistor manages to be unsentimental while still exploring longing and regret.

Subject(s): The Ladybug Transistor

In April, Brooklyn indie-rock outfit The Ladybug Transistor lost their drummer, San Fadyl, when he suffered asthma-related complications at his home in Zurich, Switzerland. Though the band's sixth album, Can't Wait Another Day, had been conceived before Fadyl's passing, it's easy to interpret this powerfully unsentimental work as a eulogy to him. Even the songs that don't directly deal with death or depression explore the sister emotions of longing and regret. Take "Terry": All these worthless nights tossing dice / Tell me please cause I can't wait another day on you / Tell me please cause I can't waste another day on you. Although Can't Wait Another Day embraces the stylistic ethos of Elephant 6 affiliates Neutral Milk Hotel by burying dark themes below simple melodies and sing-along choruses, The Ladybug Transistor's sound lacks the rough edges of Neutral Milk Hotel, instead mirroring the clean vocals and driving melodies of Merge Records label mates The Essex Green. Despite its dour lyrics, Can't Wait Another Day somehow brims with yearning and hope. Fadyl wouldn't have had it any other way.

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Music

Most Popular

It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator

Texas is the only state in the country where peyote is sold legally. Really.

For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.

"It's okay to be little bitty in the big city" is an apt slogan for this new burger joint, where sliders rule

Step back in time — to a spooky old carriage barn with a monster chicken-fried steak

It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator

Why? Because he's big and intimidating and because one family complained about him over and over again

For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.

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The Ladybug Transistor

Can't Wait Another Day

By Ben Westhoff

The Ladybug Transistor manages to be unsentimental while still exploring longing and regret.

Subject(s): The Ladybug Transistor

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