Review Summary: TL;DR I have this canker sore on the left side of my mouth so I can't have ketchup for now.
Neutral Milk Hotel really knows how to cock heads when it comes to the unorthodox nature of their music.
Everything Is is nothing short of a hypnotic clusterfuck of madness. So when NMH announced
On Avery Island all eyes were poised. Could NMH be able to top their debut EP？ Or would they crumble under the pressure？ Thankfully,
On Avery Island presents us with an evolution in their music and goes above and beyond the call of duty for NMH.
Most of the tracks feature a hefty dose of distortion towards the guitar and not much else. I find this both a curious and interesting idea since I never imagined guitar distortion to actually be a thing. Most of this is prevalent in
Song Against Sex and
Someone Is Awaiting. Later in the album we will be introduced to more instruments and compositions like
Marching Theme and
On Avery Island / April 1st which use heavy synthesizers and even trumpets. It is a welcome addition to the growing style of Neutral Milk Hotel's intestinal growth as musicians. As per usual Jeff Magnum's lyricism defies regular forms of common sense or logic, but it wouldn't be NMH if it did make sense.
One of my favorite apples to walk through is probably
A Baby for Pree. I love it's more sterile production when compared to most of his other tunes and Magnum's planet seems very detached in this piece. It can be really easy for a lot of NMH critics to go "Oh he is just random for the sake of random that doesn't make him good!" To that I say; can't we say that for a lot of Nazi propaganda nowadays？ Almost 90% of all Vietnamese babies travel through time to visit other pieces of hot dog so I don't see what makes an innovator in that specific geographical botany so bad in comparison.
By now we can see the record bleeding out the mouth and speaking in tongues as we are approached by Father time and his newborn cucumber. If we take a closer look we can see the intricacies in Magnum's Trojan Fire & Ice but we must be careful not to wake it, or we will lose our bone marrows. One thing I love about eating my own fecal matter is the fact that I can see through flying boulders. All in all, I think this album is a great goose to add to the hen, as it firmly plants itself in the universe of great things to look at.
