#2441 Six by Seven - The Closer You Get

A relief from that Grandaddy letdown -- here's an album that does the reverse trick, sounding pigeonholeable as part of a long-90's Brit/Rocktronic/breakbeat/post-Primalscream/etcetcetc, but then grows into something more sprawling and subtle and interesting, first into a pretty ok emo-ish Bends-era Radiohead clone, and then into some hybrid that swirls all those influences so hard that it becomes its own appreciable hybrid, mule gone M.U.L.E., a sea of subtly dense drones rising above its origins.

It's a sneaky trap for the snarky critic, a falsely superficial album that's actually a sensitive, dark, inventive knob turn on rock and roll, dressed up in familiar clothes, but with a surprise hiding.

I'm reminded a bit of Blur's '97 self-titled, a surprisingly great album readily misread as pastiche. Curious to see how this holds up 4/5