Rook
[Matador; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it an 8.0 and listed it as the 43rd best album of 2008.
If something sounds like this, it's going to have to absolutely break my fucking heart in order for me to think it's any good at all. I'm sorry. Once bitten, twice shy. And I've been bitten by enough of these "I'm so sensitive" orchestral indie things for a lifetime of shyness. Sorry, hope that's not unfair. If you need to, call it my loss, inability to express vulnerability and intimacy, whatever. I call it I'm in my 30's now and I know what I like and it's not this.
Opeth
Watershed
[Roadrunner; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.5.
The first 20 seconds of this is "Hotel California" juggled around to sound minor key and even more maudlin. Then it changes to acoustic guitar Tool. Then... oh fuck this.
Ok, one more song...
It's also metal? Hmmm. Ok, quiet piano interlude. Back to metal. Whoa, death metal growling! Ok, noodly metal guitar solo shredding, ok. I'm getting bored again.
But props to these Swedish guys for, I think, being the first thing I've ever listened to that routinely kicked its own ass. It's a strange accomplishment. It's like they know how much they suck but can't do anything about it. It's like listening to a fight between sucking and being mad about how much they suck (while still sucking).
Festival
Come, Arrow, Come!
[Language of Stone; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.7.
Here's a review of my preconceived notions.
"There is absolutely going to be a violin on here. And maybe even a saw. It'll be hanging out at the indiekids corner of 'orchestral' and 'jug band.' Outside chance at a tuba."
I was totally right about the saw. It's not an indiekids orchestral jug band, though. It's an indiekids folk/Appalachia/Gillian Welch revival band, but kind of vaguely British sounding. Slightly different. Mandolins playing what sounds like the original score to The Neverending Story, with a lot of spooky "oooohs." That kind of thing.
"The lyrics are going to be pretentious and flowery, the singers untrained but cute-sounding with enough self consciousness and deliberation that they might as well have taken extensive voice lessons."
Dead wrong about the voices. These are two ladies with serious voices, of the reedy variety, but still. They enunciate. A lot. And they're unselfconscious. They'd have to be to sound as direct as they do. There's nothing cute about them. The lyrics, well, yeah. Pretentious. Maybe not flowery. It's all minstrel tradition stuff. Not the blackface guys, the dancing guys with flutes.
"I won't like it."
Pretty spot on.
Local H
12 Angry Months
[Shout! Factory; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.3.
It's strange how people latch onto regional shitty bands. In Chicago we have Local H and the ghost of Poi Dog Pondering. I run into older people and sometimes they talk about their wild youth where they used to hang out with all the Poi Dog Pondering guys. I've met some of the Poi Dog Pondering guys. Nice guys. Fun to party with. Terrible, terrible band. Not the kind of band you want to brag to people about hanging out with. If it was that impressive to hang out with those guys, how come I've done it? They're just guys that happened to be a band that sounded like Happy Mondays and the New Bohemians.
I went to school in Boston. Guster. I grew up in Maryland. Jimmy's Chicken Shack.
Every place has their shitty "next big thing"/one hit wonder pop rock band that they just can't let go of. So I'd say that I'm tired of seeing "Local H" on a marquee, but there's nothing I can do about it. If I moved somewhere else, there would just be the same thing. Except maybe New York. Does New York have shitty bands that make a big regional splash, score a blip on the national conscience with a lost-in-the-shuffle single, and then spin their wheels driving enormous tour vans full of sponsorship-donated gear to medium-sized venues for 20 years, fucking some forty-something "I never go out anymore, this is fun" groupies in between phone calls to their teenaged children all along the way? No? Why, because it's New York? That might be the best reason I've ever heard to move to New York.
Not that that's what Local H are doing, per se, but it sure as shit isn't what they're NOT doing.
Hammock
Maybe They Will Sing for Us Tomorrow
[Darla; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.2.
I kept waiting for this to be something, but it never was anything. I would rather listen to silence than this. There wouldn't be a difference, really, I just wouldn't feel like I'm in some kind of day spa for guitarists.
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