Review by: Tom Winter
So Long, Pluto hail from (checking Myspace) somewhere called Scranton in Pennsylvania. I was really struggling with an opening gambit for the review as I wanted at least a positive start to proceedings. So there it is: they live somewhere successfully. Well done So Long, Pluto.
The record comes adorned with relatively twee cartoon artwork and boasts, oh man, ten songs. This saddens me by virtue of the fact that a legitimate review should surely listen to an entire record right? I remember Will Self having an argument with someone about the fact that he heavily berated a book but openly admitted not having finished it. His rhetorical question in justification was “Why, did it turn into Tolstoy just after I stopped reading?” I paraphrase.
I’m entirely at loath to criticise unwillingly but there really is absolutely nothing that I find enjoyable about this record. It’s some kind of (seriously) Fallout Boy-esque pop-punk with the occasional interjection of a piano or mandolin. I guess that makes it like”¦pop-folk or something? There’s actually something quite impressive about the extent to which the track ‘Come Revisit El Paso’ (the same title as the record incidentally, which I failed to mention) successfully gets so much so very, very wrong.
As I mentioned, I really don’t like being critical to this extent but god, if you’re inclined to spend 30 seconds on their Myspace page you will surely get the drift of how terrible this record is. So it’s superficially and patently irritating but there isn’t even any joy to be found in paying close attention to the band’s lyrics. For instance, taken from ‘Sleep Wakeup Sleep’ (which I think is an attempt to sonically imitate the Mountain Goats):
“Maybe you should lay off the vodka for more than a week,” she said. “Why does it matter?” I said “I don’t know” and got depressed and went home”
Ok, I’ve reached track 7 and think I’ve heard enough. The only good thing to come out of listening to the album is that I’ve developed an enormously clear understanding of Andy’s claim “we get so much crap for review that you have to have some fun with it really” (Malcolm, Andy – 06.11.2009). I’ve had no fun with it really, but this record is really rather crap. Sorry So Long, Pluto.