so iceage just make objectively great music. no room for disapproval? seems to be the feeling i'm getting from this. coincidentally it seems you spent a great deal of time trying to dispel this. again. i can't read another word, i'm too full from your observations on how good music can be!

/rambling

Digging: The National - Trouble Will Find Me

"manly" isn't a word I'd use to describe iceage at all.

Album Rating: 3.9

oh, not saying there's no room for disapproval at all. I just get worried about tying opinions to social contexts that are fluid and thus overlooking the material object in front of you

i like that. it seems to bring the music to the foreground more than the need to make some point
haphazardly tied with the music. makes me think of the new cmg reviewing style and i think your
thoughts really highlight why their new style expresses the thoughts about what it is they're
listening to so much more fluidly than being constricted to societal norms about how we perceive, or
even expect, things to sound and then rating it off that basis.

Album Rating: 3.9

lol i hope someone over there reads that

lord give me strength

hey i like their new reviews! i never saw the similarities between neurosis and miguel until 4 months ago

Album Rating: 3.5

This shit is indeed awesome lads

Digging: Kylesa - Ultraviolet

Great review and good points, Downer.

What you've mentioned of Ian's review smacks too much of college English classes to me: a bunch of people tasked with drilling for meaning when sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

My favorite experience in that realm was when I was taking my 400 Shakespeare and we were reading Othello. Half of the people in the class decided Iago was gay to the point where one of them got up and declared that the strawberries on the handkerchief during the plot were phallic and decided to draw an illustration of how a strawberry can be turned into a dong with a few properly placed lines.

People forget that it's their brains that add the lines and that the important thing is the whole, you know, betrayal plot. Or, in this case, the fucking rock 'n' roll.

Digging: TesseracT - Altered State

this album is seriously so much better when you don't think about it and just pay attention

Album Rating: 4.0

record is awesome
review is fine
planes new av sup

Digging: The Blue Letter - Love Is Not Control

Review is excellent. Also, "whizwave".

"What you've mentioned of Ian's review smacks too much of college English classes to me: a bunch of people tasked with drilling for meaning when sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

We had to write a few fiction short stories for my AP Lit class (12th Grade), and funnily enough, I ended up imbuing symbolic meaning like that into most of my compositions. I'm not saying it was well-done at all---it probably came off as heavy-handed to anyone who caught it---but it actually convinced me most of authors intend a lot of the extra meaning that we try to derive. Of course there's overanalysis, but that shouldn't be a reason not to extract as much meaning as possible.

Sorry for the tangential discussion Downer

Digging: Anchor & Braille - Felt

Oh, some of it, sure. But Iago is not gay and the strawberries on the handkerchief are not fruit-dipped dongs.

There's a difference between intended symbolism and a stretch to support whatever your left-field idea is, I guess, what I'm saying.

Album Rating: 2.6

SputnikMusic 1 - 0 Pitchfork

Digging: Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

Album Rating: 2.6

Adam Downer you always find a way back into my heart. Phenomenal stream-of-consciousness writing. I am green with envy in the best of ways.

Album Rating: 2.6

Also I now feel bad for rating this a 2.6.

Album Rating: 2.2 | Sound Off

Atomic, I always picture you speaking with a slight southern gentlemen accent.

Digging: The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us Is the Killer

i like this so far

interesting piece

saw a poster at my local venue last night that these guys are playing there in late March. I haven't heard their music but I guess I'm going to see them live. heeyyyyyyy why not, right?