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Its not a bad album but its not stellar either (compared to their back catalog).
they've (thurston) said they have little intention on "breaking new musical ground" so that is up for interpretation but w/ that being said i would say you're not gonna get some ear shattering great stuff outta this band anymore i think, they just continue to fine tune their trademark sound within the pop song medium and thats perfectly fine as that is their objective so no one should be let down or have certain expectations because of this, now with that said based on their previous efforts and music of the same type i give Rather Ripped a 6 (and i'm 31 yrs old).
i can see how those can give higher marks, but on a whole for me the sound and feel of this album is unbalanced, almost all of the abrasiveness/edgieness known of SY is missing (which i believe was intentional based on thurston's comments in the recent Wire article where he stated they sought out to make an album that could be compared to Blondie's Parallel Lines which had a different and softer feel as compared to anythign they'd done up to that point...) also its lyrically off and weaker than normal and the song structures do seem too cliche and predictable (which doesn't necessarily mean thats bad).
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