Labels: 54 40 Or Fight! Records
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Hmm, not sure about that title. Sounds like they were trying too hard. But titles are titles and music is music, lets just get on with listening to the thing.
Some of this record I really liked, and some of it did what I believe you would technically refer to as “passed me by”. It starts of really nicely, with a twiddly instrumental that is very pleasant and mellowed out in an Aerial M fashion. Then the first song kicks off and the vocals are just plain weird. Sort of cracked and squeaky, like maybe they heard Tim Kinsella and said “hey, lets do a band with a vocalist that sounds even sillier than that guy from Joan of Arc”. I’m not quite sure what they were going for, because the music is jangly and slow like a Mike Kinsella project. At this rate I am going to have to mention Mark Kinsella too, just to reach my Kinsella quota for January that I have been assigned by the Internet Foundation of Pathetic Reviewers. Later on with this CD, the vocals reappear but are often recorded so quiet that you can barely discern them.
They do have various elements to the band, sometimes things get all noisy out of nowhere, they have jazzy parts and piano tinkles. Other times things fizzle and get a little random (Joan of Arc), and even occasionally they get noisy and random at the same moment, kind of like in a school music lesson where everyone is just smashing their instrument at once so that they can be the loudest. Actually, I think someone should record a 7″ which is just that on one side, and emo violence on the other.
I think this is just one of those kind of OK records. It didn’t quite do enough for me personally to make me fall out of my (rubbish) chair, but I didn’t hate it, I don’t want to snap the CD in half or piss on it, or something like that. The good moments are fine, it just failed to captivate me. Maybe on a different day or under different circumstances. Who knows.