Remember when you first heard the Who's "A Quick One, While He's Away"? Remember how it suddenly became clear to you that long operatic rock songs were absolutely awesome? Tricky to pull off, sure, and also long, convoluted, constantly shifting, and extremely weird, but so what? When a band can work the long format successfully it's pretty certain that us rock geeks will be geeking out.

It's kind of a lost tradition, and based on The Folded Palm (2004), I probably wouldn't have guessed that Frog Eyes would be the band to resurrect this format. And yet here we are, blessed with "Bushels": a nine-minute track that will stand as one of the most brilliant songs of 2007, not to mention the band's impressive repertoire. Hell -- even literally, it dwarfs the band's other songs.

Before this, Frog Eyes has only released two songs over five minutes ("Ice on the Trail" and "Silence but for the Gentle Tinkling of the Flowing Creek"); it came as somewhat of a surprise, therefore, when the band played two sprawling new tracks on their Daytrotter session last year. In my review of "Caravan Breakers" I suggested the song was "easily among the best Frog Eyes have produced." I was less enthusiastic about the early version of "Bushels"; it felt a bit muddled around the edges, and while the central ideas and the killer closing section were in place it lacked the clarity and vicious bite of "Caravan Breakers."

None of this is true on the album version: every member of the band knows exactly what to do. And they're killing it. Carey Mercer simultaneously channels David Bowie, Sam Cooke, and Roger Daltrey; stuttering over himself, wailing with unholy passion, taking it down to a haggard whisper for that killer denouement. The band is on fire, their instruments and accents rising and falling perfectly, building to that fiery climax between the 4:30 and 6:30 marks where guitars, piano, and drums flail madly toward the song's breakdown. And, man: when it comes it hits like a ton of bricks. And then everything subsides, Mercer keeps going, and a few strummed chords and the piano and drums come charging back in: another ton of bricks. There's no need to worry. Rock and roll seems to be doing just fine.

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