#495 Gauntlet Hair - Gauntlet Hair

Cleaning up the last of the 2011 lists' dregs. Someday I'll actually get my own list together.

I have a hangup with bands that sound like other bands. If I’m not even that hot on the band being copped in the first place my tolerance level is pretty low, even if what you’re doing is perfectly good, I can’t shake the association.

In this case, Gauntlet Hair = Animal Collective. I’m half tempted to smartassedly leave it at that. But it’s like someone went down the list. Tons of reverb, huge overblown drums, vocals that echo to forever, more reverb, repetitive structures, swirling swirling overblown reverb. Ok, ok, ok. God dammit, at some point just make a song that fills the space instead of making a tiny song and inflating every note to enormous proportions. The result is bloated and fuzzy and vague.

Maybe this is fun to have echo around you while you’re stoned out of your mind. And if this had come out in 1997 it would be a revelation. But no points for listenability, no points for originality, and a penalty for the fact that I, unlike most of the indie world, is right burned out on the Animal Collective scene.

All this glossing over the actual merits, the other touchstones (The Shins, Swervedriver, each at their reverbiest), the comparative crispness of Lights Out, but that’s what you get. First impression mini-reviews of derivative albums shouldn’t even run this long 2/5

You might like this if: I don’t know why I ever really started this little subsection. Its often hard not to be a wiseass about it. If you like Animal Collective.