The best way I can describe my feelings towards this album is that, while I thoroughly enjoyed it after a couple of listens and thought it was quite an acceptable folk-rock record with the kind of oddball touches the Dodos specialize in, it pales in comparison to Visiter. It's amazing how much more my ears perk up when "A Time to Die" fades out and my iTunes proceeds to the opening song of Visiter, "Walking." Time To Die is a good album, and would have made fairly great debut, but coming after what was surely one of the debuts of the year in the Visiter, it's a bit of a letdown.
While no one will consider Time to Die a bad album, it certainly is an album that will incite ponderous thoughts of what could have been. This could have been Feels to Visiter's Sung Tongs; the follow up to a breakthrough record that propels the band to superstar status by expanding on the good of the previous record while eliminating the bad. Instead we get The Dodos' cliffnotes. Time To Die is a pop rock less-freak-than-folk record that despite being consistently solid, lacks the oomph that made The Dodos a special act in the first place. Everything sounds so in-check; the melodies are generally orthodox, the drumming (while always peppy) is generally tame, and- the worst crime of all- there is no risk to the project. So while the album will give its jollies and be an impressive release and all that, it's the untapped potential that will be most memorable from Time to Die.
Not as superb as visiter, but still awesome. Its a more pop sound, the songs are calmer, and really beautiful. Maybe i miss the crazy stuff that some songs like joes waltz had in Visiter
