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Originally Posted by SonicBebs
Its a beautiful, Minimal album. It's the album i wanted them to make, its warm and human and has their personality all over it. Couldn't give a shit what anyone else thinks about it obviously but to answer the question, i really really like it. It sounds like nothing else around. really good
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Thank you!! This is basically a more concise and understandable version of something I wrote in an earlier thread after the leak. Sure, nothing on this album jumps out as "look at me! I'm a great song!" But I think that sort of thing is exactly what Kim was railing against to begin with. If I may quote a portion of one of my myspace blogs (sorry about the off-topic beginning, but I promise it morphs into something relevant):
"* And I was supposed to get an early night so I could be refreshed and ready to get caught up on lectures today, but this documentary about Van Gogh and Gaugin totally sucked me in. I had *no* idea about the unhealthy dynamic between the two, and how Gaugin was an arrogant, money-grubbing, syphilitic ass-hole. And while I knew about Van Gogh’s ear thing, I never realized just *how* insecure and fragile he was, which gives his paintings--and his insistence on
authentically documenting the moment (as opposed to Gaugin, who faulted him for not "painting from memory" (and incidentally, "Starry Night"--done in an asylum--was his answer to this))--an added sense of immediacy and brilliance. It’s like the Breeders vs. the majority of artists: while the songs are important, it’s just as important to understand the exact moment or set of circumstances that the artist’s work--their response to life around them--took place in. Music recorded flawlessly in a sterile, sound-proof environment lacks any connection to the reality of the moment. So what if "Bang On" sounds like it was "recorded in a box under the stairs"--maybe it was. Wouldn’t that have been kind of fun? And then when you listen to it, you can almost imagine being there at the time, hearing all the flaws, giggles, and scrappy brilliance that make it particular to that moment, impossible to reproduce."
Plus, I recently (April 11th) lost my partner of 9 years to a drug overdose. Even before it happened, this album was to me both the epitome of a "drug album" and an "anti-drug album," which in itself I found incredibly intruiging. The night it happened, I had listened to the album as I smoked my joint, and "Night of Joy" and "We're Gonna Rise" summed up exactly what both myself and Matt were going through (respectively). And to anyone who thinks this album lacks musicality, just listen to "Spark": weird chord changes abound, and it bounces back and forth between musically jarring (suggestive of the lightning-struck power lines she's describing), and eerily serene (as she sings how "clouds were bruised when the day broke"). While I am normally not the type to make sweeping generalizations about others' musical tastes, enough of it has been done from the opposite camp that I feel within my right to say that anyone who can't at least appreciate this album for the intelligence and thought that went into it is a short-sighted dolt who really doesn't deserve to be offering opinions on music EVER. (So there! :b)