This is an album that fades away while I’m doing other things, but as soon as I actually start to pay attention to the music, it starts to annoy me. I found it very easy to potter about and do other things while this album was on, but none of the tracks lured me back to the computer to find out the name of the specific track that was playing.
The music is pleasant enough, and is energetic enough to carry me though my daily tasks, and I’m glad I have plenty to do today. Usually I’m walking while listening to music, and I can tell that I would have very quickly turned this over had I been walking to work while listening to ‘Ode to J.Smith’.
‘The man who’ was the only Travis album I’d heard at any length before this one, and thus it was the only one that I liked. I did very much like that album, with it’s slightly ridiculous fun and optimistic sounding songs, where even songs like ‘Why does it always rain on me’ which has some very melancholy lyrics, still had enough bounce and singalongability. I don’t know what happened between now and then, maybe the Record Label cut of one off their toes every time they smiled, because this album doesn’t have a single smile in the whole thing. It’s sullen and moody and grown up. If someone can tell me what’s happened to this band in the last eight and a half years to explain such a change in tone, let me know.
Maybe they just hit puberty.
It’s said that each song on the album is “written about nameless characters or to nameless characters” but they seem to be about and to people I know nothing about, and the songs don’t tell me and I don’t really care about. It’s like watching a documentary where they never once tell you who they’re talking about.
Listen to this album: While doing something more interesting than picking your nose.
Rating: 61%
Extracts from ‘J.Smith’, ‘Long way down’, ‘Quite Free’ and ‘Song to self’
“Screech, Screech…” sings lead singer Caleb Followill, as the soft rock guitar chugs behind him.
This album is not only whiny and high pitched, it’s also whiny and high pitched. Is there anything you need to know about the album? Has this description not already caused you to throw up your arms in disgust and vow never to buy this album?
Well, other than that, it’s pretty solid as an album, the quite mild tempered nature of the music causes me to be quite forgiving of the self-obsessed and pompous singer. Like a big floppy dog, that’s just done a poo in the middle of your floor, but looks really sorry about it, the music seems to apologise for the over the top nature of the lyrics. It’s like when your friend is far too drunk and is making a fool of himself in public, and you spend your whole time apologising to everyone and trying to usher your friend into the nearest taxi and tell the driver to dump him on his doorstep.
I really want the singer to have a soft raspy voice, telling me about the harsh times he’s faced and how he struggled through adversity. Instead I have some stupid-faced kid screaming at me that my sex is on fire. That’s not what I want from any album.
Throughout the album, it doesn’t get any better and I continue to be slapped with a barrage of trivial nonsense that sounds less preferable to nails on a blackboard. At least with nails on a blackboard, I can punch the person who’s doing it.
The short periods that are enjoyable are quickly doused with another helping from the Screechasaurus. Crawl is one of the only songs which shows what this album should have been like, with the deep sound, the meandering rhythm and the singing that isn’t very annoying.
Listen to this album: With your head in a bucket of ice water.
Rating: 43%
Extracts from ‘Crawl’, ‘Manhattan’, ‘Notion’ and ‘I want you’
It’s been a while since an album has been released that I feel completely indifferent about. This album succeeds at not making me hate it. While it’s another indie by numbers album that has no unique ideas or interesting development anywhere in it and thus should be condemning the band to a firey death and embarking on a quest to remove any trace of this band from the earth, but I couldn’t really care about the band or what they do. I feel absolutely nothing while hearing these songs. It’s as though I’m not listening to anything at all.
Is it worse to have a band that doesn’t even inspire you to hate them? Can they get any percentage mark at all?
Listen to this album: ?
Rating: -
Extracts from ‘The Glorified Collector’, ‘I’d be lying to you’, ‘People Watching’ and ‘How do I end this?’
Until hearing this album, I was on the ‘NOT’ side of the impressed scale for Death Cab for Cutie, I thought that they were bland and pointless and stupid. There are songs on this album, that still fall into this category. After an interesting start to the album, I do not want to turn it off and am being sucked into this album, like a pea in a black hole, they decide to turn the suction to reverse with the rest of the album. At first I was hopeful, and thought that I was going to get some interesting variation on the standard indie by numbers format, especially when reading that the producer of the album say ” “thus far it’s pretty weird and pretty spectacular; lots of blood. It’s creepy and heavy…” I was really expectant, but all I am now is thoroughly disappointed and think that producer, Chris Walla is a liar.
There are some interesting points to the album, ‘I Will Possess Your Heart’ and ‘Grapevine Fires’ are different and refreshing in a dessert of never-ending blandness. I must admit, this is better than a lot of the indie that is around at the moment.
Listen to this album: While eating sand.
Rating: 69%
Extracts from ‘Bixby Canyon Bridge’, ‘No Sunlight’, ‘Grapevine Fires’ and Long Division’
Having read the 3 step guide to singing modern indie, Santogold realises she read the copy for men.
This is quite a confusing album because she sets out to break in to a genre very much dominated by white people and fails very badly with it, although when it comes to the songs which are more reggae and hip hop influenced, they are very good. Even though she says she “has made a point of not performing R&B or rap like other “brown girls”,saying she is “not like Ciara.” Wiki
These are some of the best songs on the album, and it also sounds a bit pretentious, why can’t she just do it and not mention race?
The indie based songs are bad, it sounds forced and not very good. It’s like the male singer of some naff indie band has had his balls chopped off. Every song that isn’t grouped into this genre is exceptionally good.
‘Shove it’ which has some reggae sounding influences is very enjoyable, ‘Creator’ which is very hip hop had me dancing in my seat and ‘My Superman’ which sounds more like something Goldfrapp would produce is lovely.
Overall, this album is good once you cut out the indie bits, all the other stuff is really very good. Some interesting influences are brought in to play in the album and more than a couple of times i was jigging away to her tunes.
While trying to pic some samples to put below here, I found myself wanting to put most of the songs on, so that goes to show that there must be a good few worthy of putting up., I was just very put off by the indie.
Listen to this album: Covering your ears when she tries to do indie.
Rating: 80%
Extracts from ‘Shove It’, ‘Say Aha’, ‘Creator’ and ‘My Superman’
