Review Summary: I listened. Boredom ensued.
October 27th, 10:00am: I've awoken to a painful headache or EPIC proportions. My head is throbbing more than Ron Jeremy's throbbing manhood as his fluffer prepares him for another day of mindless sex romping. I overdid myself the previous evening. Downing 3/4ths of a bottle of vodka on an empty stomach was not one of my better decisions recently. But I'm young. Being young and alcoholism go together like Jesus and David Blaine esque magic tricks created well before their time. Jesus was a magician's pioneer.
I reach for the cold, loving embrace of a glass of water. I down four glasses in quick succession. The initial feeling of relief turns to unpleasantness as the gallon of water sloshing in my stomach awakens my bowels into a furious rage. Duty calls.
After evacuating my bowels in painful excursion I NEVER want to experience again that felt like a reverse anal raping, I sit down at my computer chair perusing the interweb for something soothing to listen to to tend to my poisoned body. To my ever so pleasant surprise, I see Devendra Banhart has released a new album on this very day. I begin to get a bit giddy. How could I have not known of this? I quickly download the album from the nearest neighborhood torrent site. And by torrent site, I mean ITUNES, of course. I would never illegally download...yeah...
11:30am: My mouth is parched as I awake once again. I dozed off into oblivion, dreaming of doing shrooms in the amazon and dry humping Amazonian tribal women's legs as a reward for saving them from flesh eating pirahnas. There is dead silence. I peer to my Itunes, sitting there lifelessly and silent. "What Will We Be", the latest Devendra Banhart release...is now over. How could this be? The euphoric feeling of knowing of this album's existence has faded into confusion. Had I fallen asleep whilst listening? I remember listening to the opening track "Can't Help But Smiling", but that's it. I vaguely remembered it sounding like a terrible rendition of a 60's surfer pop song. I don't like that. But I am obviously just not in the right state of mind.
12:00pm: Ok, this hangover is really biting me in the ass, and I'm not going to let it control me any longer. It's time for a little hair of the dog. I frantically grasp for the remainder of my vodka. I down it all in a swift gulp as my face contorts into many ugly and disturbing expressions. As the alcohol pulses through my veins and begins to pull me into a semi-drunken state, I decide to give ole Devendra another whirl.
1:00pm. I stumble out of the bathroom, just releasing the inner depths of my intestines into the toilet via my esophagus. I stand there, still queazy. Though now I am unsure of the exact culprit. Is it my reckless abandonment for my well being? Or is it perhaps something far more sinister and depressing. Could it be, that Devendra Banhart's first album as a beardless man has in fact become a direct representation of his music? Without the beard, Banhart is a baby faced man that's lost character. The album is obviously an indication of that.
In fact, listening to music while intoxicated is one of my favorite activities. And yet, this couldn't even hold my attention? It all sounded like hushed, middle of the pack, conventional songwriting with no edge. Each song blending together into a cluster*** of rehashed material and shattered expectations. Where's the edgy Banhart I love? Like the one who wrote a song about falling in love with little boys so his music wouldn't be played at Starbucks. THAT is what I want to hear. Banhart has obviously lost his songwriting edge. Perhaps it's a result of him finding a niche. A comfort zone he doesn't feel compelled to stray too far from. As a whole, the album flows coherently, and is easy to fall into a trance-like state too, but rarely does it ever burst out with an attention grabbing moment to awaken you from your near slumber. And that's a shame considering the attention to detail you hear on albums such as "Cripple Crow" and "Rejoicing in the Hands".
Maybe, just maybe he's lost his touch since he's no longer sucking the teat of the emphatically beautiful Natalie Portman. That would throw me off too. So for that, I give him some sympathy points. But only a few, because he was lucky enough to be nailing her in the first place. But maybe this is a taste of why she left him in the first place. Maybe, he became too boring for his own good.
