Review Summary: Can you spell d-i-s-a-p-p-o-i-n-t-m-e-n-t? Good, but that doesn't begin to cover it.
How to even begin? A couple of 'how' questions seems as fitting a way as any. How, in the space of three years, did the most promising indie band on the scene manage to stamp out, light on fire and piss on every single thing that made them remotely original or unique? How did a band that fearlessly covered the uncoverable
Aja and wrote a concept album inspired by the inimitable Cormac McCarthy graduate to writing lyrics like "I-I-I can't help, I-I-I can't help but want it all", let alone repeating them four times and calling it a chorus and somehow being
okay with that? How does anyone lose enough self-respect to release an album that makes M83's
Junk a retro-pop masterpiece in comparison? How, to put it bluntly, did the Darcys *** up this monumentally?
Here's the thing.
Centerfold is not clever, retro, funky or even faintly amusing in the so-bad-it's-good way.
Centerfold is not some slick 80s throwback that will have you misty-eyed and lost in nostalgia, thinking about that far-off land of your childhood.
Centerfold is the aural equivalent of that porn-stache on Wes Marskell's face on the cover art – annoyingly distracting, frustratingly out-of-date and honestly actually kind of gross.
Centerfold is like if you reversed Radiohead's discography so they released
Pablo Honey in 2016 as their big comeback, except even that album has its "Stop Whispering"s. I don't really stoop this low often, and I don't plan on ever being unfortunate enough to listen to another album to which this can be applied, but
Centerfold is
Chuckles and Mr. Squeezy. Do yourself a favour: if you downloaded this album, delete it and empty the Recycle Bin. Go and buy it on CD just for the vicious, cathartic release of stamping it to goddamn pieces. Download a google add-on that replaces all mentions of it with pictures of a cat or something. Let's just pretend it doesn't exist.
