Pitchfork Reviews 4/11/08

Mark Kozelek
April
Nights
[Caldo Verde; 2008]

Pitchfork gave them an 8.3/7.3.

What do you do with a guy like this? It's the guy from Red House Painters. It's the guy who's Sun Kil Moon. He collaborates with Will Oldham. He's a total crooner/strummer/"songwriting genius." The kind of guy whose concerts have to, like by law, have seats for sitting in, and when you go with somebody who likes this stuff you have to yawn through your teeth to avoid offending them. And if they catch you, you tell them it's because you had a tough day at work and you just find it so "soothing."

And sure, it's pretty. And really well done. It's hard to find fault with any of it. It's flawless to the point where stereo salesmen put on in the store to show you how beautiful and perfect your system will sound. Or the kind of thing where you walk past a venue and see a huge crowd of overdressed-up 40somethings who look like going out is a special event in their lives and they all came in from the suburbs especially for this, and then you look at the marquee and say to yourself "who the fuck is Mark Kozelek?"

And for a second you're like "seriously, why have I not heard of this guy" but then you see that one annoying-but-nice guy from three jobs ago and he is super psyched to see you because it means he knows people in the city, and that might impress his eHarmony date, and he fills you in, which he's hoping will also impress his date because "I know something this guy doesn't," so he'll enthusiastically tell you all about Mark Kozelek and you'll make a nonchalant "oh" sound upon hearing what the deal is, and then he'll make a face, and you'll walk away wondering if you just cockblocked the dude, even though the woman he was with didn't seem the least bit interested in anything that he was saying in the first place, and probably knew she was in for an excruciatingly boring concert experience with exactly the type of dude she should be dating but isn't ever attracted to. What was that dude's name again? Greg? Something with an L? Lance? Leg? Not Leg, obviously. Something. Christ, it's cold.

That kind of a thing.

Anyway, these two releases are this guy's own label, I think in limited "man, the way these rabid cult-of-me fans are, I should do some expensive-looking micro-imprint 180gram vinyl releases, keep a bunch of them, and--cha-ching--invest in me" pressings, and one of them came with a book of his lyrics, and they're probably out of print and you'll never have to worry about owning them. For any reason.


The Long Blondes
"Couples"
[Rough Trade; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 5.8.

Romeo Void. Nu Shooz. Neneh Cherry. And now, finally, The Long Blondes. It's nice to have a new female-fronted new wave band that sometimes piques your curiosity in the dollar LP bin just enough to buy when you're in the advanced "dehydrated and need to deuce" stages of an unsatisfactory record hunt, and later when you get home it never gets played ever again even though you kind of vaguely liked it on first listen. It was getting kind of lonely there since No Doubt broke up. Except we're in the download era, so the right now equivalent is "not even for free."


The Helio Sequence
Keep Your Eyes Ahead
[Sub Pop; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.

Andrew Gaering's Pitckfork review gives a great between-the-lines explanation of what's gone wrong here:

"[Vocalist Brandon] Summers' development comes with a tidy backstory: Amidst touring for 2004 Sub Pop debut Love and Distance, Summers lost his voice, read Dylan's Chronicles, and saw a doctor who instructed him not to sing for almost two months. The resultant scare led Summers to a feast of indie rock anomalies: healthy living via exercise and a regular practice/recording schedule and technical improvement via singing exercises. The results lie in ascendant vocals that replace awkward growls and breathy whispers with precise notes and even phrasing."

Which I think translates to "nice guy, nice try." You'd hate to trash the guy after he went through such a horrific experience, right? A SINGER who lost his VOICE? Horror of horrors. How did he possibly pass the time? He must have just, like, worked at his day job without daydreaming too much. Maybe he even considered settling down and starting a family or something. Yuck. That would have really deprived the world of some middling rock music sung by a guy who's life regiment has been described as "healthy living via exercise and a regular practice/recording schedule and technical improvement via singing exercises," whose voice is notable for its "precise notes and even phrasing."

I love this guy! It's just so considerate of him to work so hard on hitting his notes precisely and evening out his phrasing. As a rock fan, I'm flattered by it. And even his backstory is "tidy!" I'm glad he didn't pack it in when things got super rough for him. It's about time we had our next U2. Our next Aerosmith. Our next Spin Doctors, for cryin' out loud! Fans of American Rock n Roll have spoken, and we demand technical proficiency!

Bonus: it's on Sub Pop. Hilarious.


Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
Pershing
[Polyvinyl; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.2.

I really like this review by Ian Cohen. Especially the parts where he gets bored and just makes stuff up, casually dipping into "I have a theory" territory before openly admitting to not really listening to this, and then tells some facts about Boris Yeltsin. It's as passive-aggressively scathing as things get over at Pitchfork over what seems like a "we're a little light, let's go ahead and pull something 'indie' out of the major-label promo dungheap and treat it like it's actually music" timewaste.

Passive aggression is an appropriate tone for discussing this group (not as appropriate as not bothering, but we'll take what we can get), because they're just workaday hacks desperately kitchen-sinking a living out of easygoing music cliches, and there's no point in actually getting angry about it. Two years later, it's like this never happened. So: way to give it the old college try, Ian Cohen. I even like the paragraph where, in a considered, serious way, you actually talked about some of the tracks off of this ambientStarbucksnoise disaster. It's somehow idiotically noble. Nobody's mad at you. It was a pointless assignment.

Actually, that's a great epitaph for this band. "The old college try."


Cloud Cult
Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes)
[Earthology; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 4.2.

Feel-good unintentional comedy album of the year, 2008. It's kind of shame that there's no such thing as radio anymore, because if there was and this was on it, we'd have a punchline reference point for neuternative music as potent as Candlebox's "Far Behind" was for the old wave. I dare you to listen to this and not laugh at the lyrics. I don't want to spoil it. Just see for yourself. Or don't. I understand: it's not as satisfying to laugh at something as it is to laugh with something. But it's a good chuckle. Trust me.

If there's still anything like a radio in 15 years, and if Arcade Fire comes on some kind of a "station" while we're driving our kids around, their little brains will hear it the same way we hear Cloud Cult and they will beg us to change the station or turn off the radio or just buy them a BrainPod so they can listen to Romeo Jones (2025's Filipino-American pop sensation) in peace. Cloud Cult is like a time machine combined with a funhouse mirror that way.

I kind of love it. It's just so blatant.