 | Tracklist:
1. Be Calm
2. Benson Hedges
3. All the Pretty Girls
4. I Wanna Be the One
5. At Least I'm Not As Sad (As I Used to Be)
6. Light a Roman Candle With Me
7. Walking the Dog
8. Barlights
9. The Gambler
10. Take Your Time (Coming Home)
| Ranking: #124 for 2009 | |
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On 256 Lists
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| Summary: Aim And Ignite can easily be summed up as as dinner out with good friends. The anxiety and hopes that you are well dressed for the occasion, the lively conversation while you eat a well cooked meal and finally ending in gaping story telling... |
2 of 2 thought this review was well written
Since when has stupid happiness become so distraught, so unthinkable to the extent we shun anything that has a hint of pure, honest joy. I feel our issue with cheerful music lies in our lack to be cheerful back.
fun.'s debut album, Aim And Ignite is here to excite you. It wants you to bask in its happiness. Clearly the work of Nate Ruess, Andrew Dost and Jack Anatoff has been crafted through tender care and attention to detail all while remaining both personal, elegant and dashed with a dressing of 'you' into it.
Nate Ruess, who parted ways with his former band, The Format is back. Clearly he sat down to remove the shackles of his former band but realised how supportive they have been in the past, and thus birthed this 10 track epic.
"As I walk through the streets of my new city" -'Be Calm' The opening track orders you to, well, be calm while remaining in a basin of anxiety and nerves. Nate starts of the album in a brand new world/ or a city if I were to quote. Coated with productive violins and an eventual drum beat behind an overall, masterfull horn assembly, it sets a certain mood for Aim And Ignite, one which is soon depleated...and exchanged.
Roughly 1 minute into Benson Hedges and I soon found myself under a sudden realisation. One drenched in a bright spotlight sitting just beneath powerfull gospal vocals led by Nate under quiant/ very indie guitar accompanied by Andrew's piano. Aim And Ignite is like a shared epiphany. Lead singer, Nate Ruess shares his experiences in the most ironic way possible.
Being: His change in life, his difficult struggle for self approval expressed in the stupid happniess of fun.'s music.
"I'm not a profit but I'm here to profit, thats all" belowing out and wrapping itself around your ears, 'At Least I'm Not As Sad As I Used To Be' is a theatrical adventure that swirls (like most tracks on the album) in and out of numerous tempos.
Part of Aim And Ignite's brilliance comes from the diversity delivered through each track. It is easy to hear that each track is different in its own way. Almost a different genre infact.
'All The Pretty Girls' is like sweet, sweet candy while 'Barlights' is an up-beat jazz meal. Regardless, all of it is delivered in easily digestible slices of joy and pure, imaginitive music.
By the time you hit the sun-set of Take Your Time "I'm through with causing a scene!" screams Nate, forgetting the scene constructed in The Format's "First Single", you are swept gently into closure underneath breathing piano and a howling electrical guitar, brought to rest.
Aim And Ignite can easily be summed up as as dinner out with good friends. The anxiety and hopes that you are well dressed for the occasion, the lively conversation while you eat a well cooked meal and finally ending in gaping story telling, longing discussions of the past under an intimate candle light and a romantic band with their drifting violins, guitars, pianos. It is something of a dream; this elegant atmosphere fun. creates so effortlessly. It is a shame most won't get to experience it.
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cmon guys
| | | Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off
fun. album
Digging: The Long Haul - Debtors Digging: The Long Haul - Debtors | | | Album Rating: 4.5
This is easily one of my favorite albums of 2009. The review is great. Pos'd.
Digging: Therapy? - A Brief Crack of Light | | |
albumm sux
| | | Album Rating: 5 | Sound Off
love this album, review captures the feel of the album well
Digging: First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar | | | Album Rating: 5 | Sound Off
Sorry Zeek, I disagree. I can understand a clash in musical taste but I can't bring myself to agree that Aim And Ignite is a bad album.
It is well constructed, thought out, written all without an actual label.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Pretty good review, i was planning on doing one as well, but i doubt i will now considering there are so many
Digging: Orrery - Nine Odes to Oblivion | | | Album Rating: 5 | Sound Off
Oh please do. I'd love to see what you come up with TheSpirit. 
Why not? Go for it!
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"Sorry Zeek, I disagree. I can understand a clash in musical taste but I can't bring myself to agree that Aim And Ignite is a bad album."
wouldnt you 'not agree' with any opinion that is different from yours on an album? i mean, i dont get why you seem to hint at 'not agreeing' in -particular- to his opinion of this album. i would think that, in any situation where person a thinks album x is good and person b thinks it sucks, person a disagrees with person b. but whatever. maybe you're more saying that normally you can -see- why someone doesn't like an album but in this case you just don't.
| | | Album Rating: 5 | Sound Off
Well I'm not trying to come across as ignorant. 
Please; don't get that impression.
However, I am confident that the album in question isn't bad. I can appreciate he dislikes it, it makes sence as not everyone can like the same thing but I completely disagree with it being a bad album, or 'sucks' in his case, not with the ammount of attention to detail and passion injected in each song.
It just seems so dismissive. Regardless, his opinion is his opinion haha. :D
So, agree to disagree is the easiest pursuit to obtain an end to such an argument.
| | | Album Rating: 4
5/5 uh? Great album and good review, but the rating is a bit exagerated...
| | | Album Rating: 5 | Sound Off
Oh I'm well aware Baphomet.
It essentially, and admitedly comes from a taste of bias and nostalgia. Technically I would see it as somewhere between a 4.0 and 4.5 but from a personal vicarious, its a 5. :D
| | | Album Rating: 4
yeah I get that. It's also amazing to me and it never gets old, but I still feel like they have to mature as a band. Who knows, perhaps their next album will be a 5 to me.
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Sorry Zeek, I disagree. I can understand a clash in musical taste but I can't bring myself to agree that Aim And Ignite is a bad album.
It is well constructed, thought out, written all without an actual label.
hey uhh i put a lot of thought and spent a lot of time making areally well constrcted album all without a label
it fuicking sucked yeha
so then i just did a loada spontaneous random shit that took me like half hour and boom best album i ever heard made by me
| | | Album Rating: 5 | Sound Off
Lol Zeek, you crazy. :P
They didn't do "A lot of random Sh*t".
Each song was well thought out under an age of influence and each song depicts a story of a chapter of the lead singers life. Whether being the break-up of The Format and the events transpired or his eventual and final/ falling in 'real' love.
The reason you hate the album so much is: you have no appreciation for it. You don't care about anyone invololved and see it as nothing more than the mechanics of the music (which are actually full of depth) but seem to lack the ability to see the 'life' behind it. There is a lot more to music than the music itself. It is the drive behind the writing that takes up at least 60 percent of it.
Though it is strange; I always imagined the music lovers' community to be more positive.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
i listen to this all the time.
good review, but you need to work on your transitions from topic to topic. itll give your review a better flow.
| | | Album Rating: 5 | Sound Off
Well, any help is good help. :D
If you don't mind, would you be able to give me some tips in a message? I'm still trying to grasp a good flow of reviews rather then, as you said, jumping from topic to topic in an attempt to squeeze everything in.
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the drive behind the writing right i'm more interested in whether i enjoy it
| | | Album Rating: 5 | Sound Off
3.5 is a completely fair score. I'd agree with that only knowing that I would imagine they could improve on Aim And Ignite...
Which leaves my score in a pickle. :P
| | | Album Rating: 4
Album was a 5 but I dropped it down eventually.
Still the best of 2009 though.
Digging: BNJMN - Black Square Digging: BNJMN - Black Square | | | |
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