Completely by accident, I went a month without listening to anything off of Pitchfork, Dusted, or any of the music sites or blogs. I think it was a combination of getting the Allmusic Guide and those sites being on holiday hiatus, but its been nice to get into some classics and away from some of the whispy cleverness of the modern indie rock world. But now, back to reality. This seems to be the 2010 album getting the most buzz among those I hadn't yet heard, so I figured I'd give it a try, even though I wasn't so hot on the debut.
This is very Detroit. A few of you know what I mean. Very Fielding. Very watery indie, with prettiness in place of fire, with a willingness to ride a chiming arpeggio and a wheeling vocal line all the way to the coda. A spare beat, a simple guitar line, repeat with minor swells and subtle swerves here and there, and that's your song. I think in theory I get caught up in the emotion of this, and I can see that maybe happening once you get used to it, if you let it in your heart. Maybe.
I find the chiming guitars mostly annoying, the structures too boring, the atmospherics underwhelming, the vocals cloying. That all sounds really negative, and I don't hate it as much as I sound like I do. Actually, it is pretty in places. The last track is moving, and I suspect becomes more so with further listens. And each song has a moment when it crystallizes that the rest of the song seems to have been reverse-engineered to scaffold.
But its a no for me. I listened to this while I watched unexplained shit tons of crows wheel and pitch over dead trees in sunset to dusk. By all accounts, this should have been the perfect soundtrack, but it didn't live up. Underwhelmed, at least for now. I'm bothered, as I write-enough to warrant more than a slightly stingy 2.5/5
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