8/11 — Rapid Fire Review

[Chad Wilkens]

OK, no time for fancy-schmancy well worded reviews with star ratings. This'll have to do instead:

A Great Day for the Race / Cities of Foam — Nice and jazzy. Great music to work to. Good rhythms, very pleasant.

Angel Milk / Télépopmusik — Surprisingly good trip hop/electronica fusion. Some tracks very catchy, others relaxing.

Brazilian Girls / Brazilian Girls — Fun, light-hearted. Very enjoyable dance-pop, very multilingual!

Nobody's Darlings / Lucero — Standard southern rock from our favorite southern rock band. Doesn't disappoint.

Catch Without Arms / Dredg — Grew on me—layered, introspective rock. Very, very good.

Silent Alarm / Bloc Party — Not bad, unworthy of the hype. A decent effort that can't live up to the crazy hype it's gotten.

The Antidote / Morcheeba — More harmonic and thick with the instruments; covers up an amazing voice and looses the trip-hop feelings.

The Understanding / Röyksopp — What happened? This feels like standard euro-electro-pop! These were different... Were.

Illinois / Sufjan Stevens — When you try too hard, you loose emotional attachment. Good execution, no passion. That's what you get when you make an album about something you can't relate to.

Gorillaz / Demon Days — Really freakin' good. Less rock, more hip hop, very catchy. It's got hooks and gets them in you.

[JVH (f/k/a Bob Dubilina)]

Yeah, Dredg can be a strange pill to swallow. I relate their stuff to Rush because the singer sounds a bit like Geddy Lee and the music leans to the art/prog rock side of life. I need to send you their debut El Cielo. I'm not sure you'll like it as much because it's grade-A, government-approved Prog, but I think it's more cohesive than Catch Without Arms.

Lucero's new one? I'm sorely disappointed. With the exception of the OUTSTANDING album closer The War, I've felt no rush to put this one on repeat. Granted, this new batch of stuff sounds better live, but that doesn't help when I'm pressing the play button at home.

I agree with your stance on Bloc Party. Jamie -- our wildly spontaneous BFN groupie-rep who's currenty representing us from her new digs in Rhode Island -- sent me their stuff. I like it, but I'm not foaming at the mouth. I've yet to hear the buzz on the street about 'em (I have been on vacation, you know), but I can just imagine all those stupid fuckin' hipsters raving about how the vinyl import of Silent Alarm is just the "bees knees" (or whatever the fuck those goddamn too-school-for-school-Von-Dutchie-trucker-cap-wearin' motherfuckers like to exclaim when they're about to cream their vintage corduroys).

Stellar bullshitter + so-so musician = Sufjan Stevens. Come On and Feel the Illinoise isn't the worst album in the world, but it's nothing to call home about either. From what I heard in your apartment, I wouldn't mind giving it another spin . . . but first I'll need to make time in my schedule. It's not in my nature to spend my free time doling out second spins to quirky melodies that were first overhyped by the guy writing them. I mean, if every artist did that, the indie 'zine industry would become extinct.

Wait a sec . . . maybe that's really not such a bad thing . . .

Greetings from Milwaukee!
BobbyDobbyD

[Chad Wilkens]

Dredg has really grown on me. I went out and got El Cielo and it turns out that it's not half bad either. You're right—it's different. But it's good rock. Color me impressed.

I think you're being a little harsh on Lucero. Alright, it's not their best. Granted. But it is solid. They've got a formula and it works.

Bloc Party just has too much damn buzz going for them. They're 2005's Franz Ferdinand. You can't go to a bar and not hear some raving about them. It just seems like a big case of me-too-ism. The thing is, it's not a bad album. They've got a good sound going for them. But after the hype, I'm mad that I didn't cream myself after hearing the album. I was so expected to be blown away that I was disappointed when only heard a decent debut.

Sufjan Stevens. Yeah. He's competent. Hearing Illinois will leave you with no doubt of that. He can make music. But there's no love there. It's all very cut-and-dry, maybe a little robotic? It's very grandiose but it lacks that personal touch that makes something memorable.

[Chad Wilkens]

bfnbob said:

Lucero's new one? I'm sorely disappointed. With the exception of the OUTSTANDING album closer The War, I've felt no rush to put this one on repeat. Granted, this new batch of stuff sounds better live, but that doesn't help when I'm pressing the play button at home.

So I just went back and relistened to Tennessee and I'm going to have to break down and agree with you—Nobody's Darlings just doesn't match up. The emotions just aren't at the same levels. The newer effort better reflects their live show; therefore, it could be easily construed that they feel that their live show more reflects their true nature and that the album should do that as well.