In 2001, Olympia, Washington's noisy punk trio
Unwound released their seventh studio album,
Leaves Turn Inside You. While every consecutive record in the band's discography had found them experimenting a little more with different styles, new instruments, or unlikely approaches,
Leaves Turn Inside You pushed into wildly uncharted territory, a sprawling and ambitious set of songs that simultaneously acted as an expansion of and a departure from
Unwound's established angular, jagged-edged post-punk sound. The group toured in support of the album throughout 2001 with a few extra members to help translate the more complex arrangements to a live setting, and in April 2002, they broke up.
Live Leaves documents that final tour (though
Unwound would reunite in a different form in 2022), taking audio for most songs from different stops along the way and capturing the ebb and flow of energy as the tour rolled along. The band had set up a home studio and worked meticulously for months self-recording
Leaves Turn Inside You. This kind of detailed studio work can often be hard to replicate on-stage, and the frenzied live versions on
Live Leaves become a separate expression. Songs like "December" and "Look a Ghost" lose some of the precision and mood of their studio versions, replacing the eerie atmospheres of the album with a visceral forward heaving. The audio quality on
Live Leaves varies considerably from show to show, with the sound of clinking glasses and crowd chatter on the same level as the band at certain points. Even with the sometimes raw sound, tracks like "October All Over" capture the band in one of their strongest phases, stretching out the abrasive intensity of their earliest work into something more intricate and emotionally evocative. Along with a majority of the songs from
Leaves Turn Inside You, the track listing also includes live favorites like the churning groove of "Corpse Pose" and early songs such as "Valentine Card" and the protracted "Arboretum."
Live Leaves is a dutiful document of what for a long time seemed like it would be
Unwound's last live performances. Despite the album's sometimes bootleg-quality sound, it offers a fly-on-the-wall perspective of what the shows were like during what was easily the group's most adventurous and exploratory time. ~ Fred Thomas
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