Album Rating: 3.5
yeah there is something crazy addicting about these tracks.
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Album Rating: 3.5
I'm going to see them on my birthday. Should be awesome. This album is a great setup because I'm very excited for the show.
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Album Rating: 3.0
Not changed my point of view about it. She got a strong and beautiful voice, but damn I find the music more and more lacking. Room Noises was better and I kinda think Combinations too.
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"Smarter" and "Ambulance" kick the shit out of everything else here.
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Album Rating: 4.0
the sequence from kind to ambulance destroys. ambulance is definitely the best song
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Album Rating: 3.5
The songs are so similar, I'd say that it depends on what you're looking for when you consider "best song". I'd say the single with most "radio potential" (I suppose "best single") would be Mr. Moon. It's extremely accessible and warm. Also, the imagery has a wide range of appeal. She uses a very clean introduction and the music that picks her up is really fitting. It's just a great song.
Ambulance is a solid song and closer but I don't see it far and away better than the other songs. It takes 1 minute to pick up and doesn't ever really get going once the music rolls in. That's where it lacked for me. 2 and a half minutes in and we're still relying on her voice to carry us through the song. It's a great voice, but it's not premier song construction compared to the rest of the album. It's beautiful in its own way, but it just lacks energy. I mean, "Smarter" could easily be argued as best single as well. Just depends.
The lyrics on this album are substandard for a 4-5 rated album. That's why I still hesitate to rate it higher. Ambulance has average lyrics. Mr. Moon is decent. But their voices string it all together so the listener doesn't really have to worry and can just latch onto their vocal hooks.
Edit: I feel like this is an excellent review, but it lacks severely in one important category: convincing me of the 4.5 rating. I could see the rating hovering between 3.5 and 4 if it was a blind test. The review is really fun and easy to read but I'm just not convinced of why it's better than ~90% of albums out there. Perhaps that contributes more to the idea that it's not a 4.5 album. I think the review's great but the rating doesn't match.
Double edit: Seeing them outside of DC tonight.
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Album Rating: 3.5
Saw them in VA and they were great. Really great. Also, they closed with Mr. Moon, only further comforting me about my suspicion of "best song".
And then they played an encore of a song from an earlier album. Just a lovely show. Selling their latest LP for 25 dollars. Ridiculous.
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Album Rating: 3.8
Edit: I feel like this is an excellent review, but it lacks severely in one important category: convincing me of the 4.5 rating. I could see the rating hovering between 3.5 and 4 if it was a blind test. The review is really fun and easy to read but I'm just not convinced of why it's better than ~90% of albums out there. Perhaps that contributes more to the idea that it's not a 4.5 album. I think the review's great but the rating doesn't match. I see what you're saying but I think you're missing a few things. First, I don't really try to convince people of a rating. I like to try to have my reviews 75% album description and 25% opinion, and I don't really try to convince people of that opinion. I'd prefer for the descriptions to do the convincing one way or the other. The rating is mostly there as a quick reference for those who won't actually read the review. I also don't use the rating to compare to every other album that has ever been released. Each album should be autonomous or compared to the band's discography at most (and possibly similar albums in a genre, if needed) but certainly not everything ever released. If I'm in the mood to listen to death metal and instead I'm listening to this it won't be a 4.5 so why compare them...
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Album Rating: 3.5
I definitely see what you're saying. On your first point about a rating being a reference, this is a great approach because many people do gloss over reviews, if they make an attempt at all.
The second point I feel like I can fidget in your direction but I'm inclined to disagree. The listener cannot directly compare Animal Collective to Anberlin to Assuck, but within each genre we can assign a rating. It becomes difficult because a 5 rating in indie pop and a 5 in death metal shouldn't necessarily mean that they can draw direct comparison, however, they should represent the best of their respective genre. I don't feel like each album should be autonomous because of several reasons, perhaps the most important of which would be artistic influence. Some bands are just doomed to be unoriginal and music critics have a responsibility to keep track of these things over time. We already do it if we are considering a band's discog, because we look at the evolution of their work over time. It's even more important to appreciate it outside of their own discog scope, and examine the significance of their work and how their innovation deviates from some standard.
This may just boil down to a difference of opinion but it's an interesting perspective either way.
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"Ambulance" destroys me. Hands down the most beautiful song I've heard in 2011 thus far.
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Album Rating: 4.0
yess definitely my favorite song of the year so far. the last four tracks of this album slay
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Album Rating: 5.0
Please is so sweet
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Album Rating: 4.5
however, they should represent the best of their respective genre.
Can I just - pointlessly, perhaps - say that I think this is one of the greatest fallacies of musical criticism. How small do you make the genres here? Is indie a genre? What about indie-pop? What about twee-pop? Acoustic twee-pop? I've always thought it mad that people say you can't draw lines across genres. You do it all the time. This isn't avoiding the fact that metal has a different intended effect to pop to punk to classical to IDM, but it's important to acknowledge that saying, "Well, it's still one of the best crunkcore albums out there" remains to this day not the most overwhelming of compliments.
The magnitude of impact that listening to a record can have isn't restricted or expanded by the genre it's a part of.
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Well said Knott. Love this album.
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Album Rating: 3.5
Yeah, but the genre provides context. I'm not saying it's inclusive, either. There aren't any rigid lines defined for critics to evaluate albums, so genres offer perspective and are critical to the context.
I don't know exactly where lines can be drawn, I just know that I can't do an evaluation of Eisley with any justice if I use the same criteria to evaluate an album by Slayer (I'm saying criteria, and not methodology...the process can be similar). There are elements to music that contribute to defining a respective genre, and in those cases, when those elements shine or falter in the music, the genre provides an even greater context for evaluation.
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Album Rating: 4.5
Ah OK. If you mean criteria then we have nothing to disagree on, I think =)
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I'm digging the shit out of this right now
working at 6am all week and playing this in the background to a morning sunrise drive just rules
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weird i have distinct memories of miserable sunrises following all nighters with this album as well
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duly noted
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cool
shithead
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