Pain Is a Reliable Signal

CD Title-Pain Is A Reliable Signal
Artist-The Flying Change
Release Date- 5/19/09

Pain Is A Reliable Signal is New York based songwriter Sam Jacobs' first album release under the moniker The Flying Change. Jacob's previous releases, 2006's 'Everything Is Good' and an EP released in the winter of 2008 titled 'There Is Only One Thing' were released under the name Lipstik.

The album draws a lot of it's content and feeling from the pain that Jacobs and his wife have been through in the past few years. His wife was was diagnosed with latent spinal birth defects that were causing extreme pain in her Sciatic nerve. After two experimental surgeries that only led to disabling back pain. This led them to search out a Hail Mary cure at The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. However doctors at the clinic informed Jacobs and his wife that they knew of no way to treat or remedy her condition. This album retells this story in the all so familiar themes of love, loss, pain and reclaimation.

The song 'The Mayo Clinic' is vaguely based on a trip to the clinic but is told from a different perspective then Jacobs'.
The violin of Antoine Silverman cuts through the song perfectly and you can feel the pain being released by bow and strings. The highlight of Pain is the song 'Don't Look Away'. Jacob's releases his inner Springsteen vocals over a Radiohead-esque track that speaks to the optimism he holds in his heart.

All in all this CD is pared down to the bare necessities and it is all the much better for it. If you hear it in a song you know that Jacob's felt it has to be there to make the song better. I can guarantee this album is going to get some heavy rotation on my iPod. It has everything one could ask for in a CD. Dubbed by Jacobs as "Landscape Pop", Pain it is void of any song that I wanted to skip.

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