Volcano Choir recently let us view an entire set of live music (via NPR) from their tour in support of new album Repave.   Now comes the band (via Pitchfork) performing song Comrade in an old tannery in their home state’s Milwaukee.  Watch below as the band gathers volume, eventually bleating and bellowing the song superbly.  As we’ve said repeatedly, we prefer the vocals of humans to machines.  But here, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) applies heavy effects (vocoder), and the song still surmounts.  The song’s lyrics (your guess is as good as ours as to the meaning–sung to a drug-addled conservative friend/ex-friend?) follow the performance.

“Like i didn’t know it
choking on the pulp of it
Semper fi
you kept me on your long line
tugging in the whole time
keep shining on

and that silent head grip…
can’t do it no more

the honey bin
the bunny’s in
is telling you there’s a countdown
oh, damn your eyes

had that one a long time

sorting out the long pipe
hoping that the copper fits
make sure you stay oblivious

said that we could go back
said that we could go find
terra forming!
said that you were coke blind
drinking in dramnesic
tore out at the comrade

that’s a comrade, making a comrade offer

that Ticonderoga’s shit
made my mind and my heart all split up over
the floor of the jackpot
there’s a floor to the jackpot
where’do you rise???

you don’t even lie to me no more

‘ey say you ain’t a comrade
still, i’d know you’d come back
for a folly-ridden Romeo, you break down a fortress NOW
standing out in public
stained with your conscience

i know that you love me
you are just lawless, son

give it another fortnight
eye to eye the culprit
just rid the fucking pulpit
i ain’t giving you another full ride
underneath the combine
said it didn’t bump you right
habitual falling right?”