I’ll say this right out of the gate – I don’t care about
Fleet Foxes. Everyone here is all gaga for them but I just don’t get it. I
don’t dislike them, I just don’t care. But I’m really going to give them a
chance here and so now time to listen and review.
I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar
Oh my god. I don’t know if I can take any more mumbling
albums. It’s been a run of them lately so the opening mumbling isn’t getting
off on the right foot with me. Real guitar strumming and singing kicks in
pretty quickly so already I’m feeling better. ABRUPT STOP AT TWO-AND-A-HALF
MINUTES and now back to our song. As long as they use that trick sparingly I’m
OK with it. But now it happened again, this time with bird sounds. And now it’s
happening more frequently. The main song part is decent but mostly sounds like
a big group of hippies dancing and singing at a party and the orchestra
happened to stop by for a drink. Not a lot else going on from what I can tell
but that would be fine if not for the jerking. A different song just started.
Like a totally different song. Why make this all part of the same track on the
album? The title has three songs in it but unless the third is very short there
will be only two. I think the door opening break has the same song after and
the lapping waves lead to…who knows. The hippies are clapping for themselves
but I’m pretty sure I only heard two songs and a lot of ambient sounds from
their party.
Cassius, -
Stylized punctuation in song titles is the hot thing this
year. The intro to this song has an Animal Collective vibe. Good animal
collective, not the more recent stuff. These foxy foxes aren’t as good at this
kind of singing as their animal buddies. I guess you need a forest to make a
psychedelic folk song. Even as a so-so imitation I still prefer this over the
first song. I really want this kind of music to grab me so I can sing along
and/or bob my head in time but they appear to be opposed to that. Every time I
get bobbing this song stops too. The family-centric chorus is catchy even if I
don’t quite know what they’re talking about with “Wife, a son, a son, a son,
and a daughter”.
Nice transition! Oh wait…it’s still the same song. Well, I
liked the transition to a new song at around four minutes but it turns out they’re
making another song sandwich.
||
I got distracted and a whole song and a half played without
me realizing it. I only noticed because the foxy dude said “ossified”. Let’s
rewind.
- Naiads, Cassadies
…
||
I instantly got distracted again. Let’s rewind.
Well this sounds pretentious. Maybe that’s why my brain let
me get distracted. “Complicit” isn’t even that big of a word but the way it’s
delivered here sounds like it just popped up on someone’s “Word Of The Day”
calendar. Even the strings (which I normally love) aren’t doing anything for
me. And the piano feels lumped on. Pretentious song name and lyrics, dull song,
bad job.
Kept Woman
This sounds like the age of Aquarius. With the word
“ossified”. Andrew Bird can barely pull off the 10-dollar words but these guys
should stick with the five-dollar ones. There’s some aimless strumming and
ambient piano tinkling over a rambling reflection on…the nature of self? That’s
a reach. I have no clue because this song is putting me to sleep.
Third of May / Ōdaigahara
I had to look it up, but Ōdaigahara is a mountain in Japan.
Wikipedia has no remarkable facts about it so I have to assume that one or more
of the band members saw it on a trip and thought it was so great that they had
to tell everyone about it using a song with a hard-to-type and (yet again)
pretentious name. This song is actually pretty catchy but I spend the first two
minutes learning about a stupid mountain so now that I’m paying attention I’m
not heavily invested. Good thing it’s nine minutes long. Oh, and there it
stopped. Because there’s probably another songburger about to be made. I’m not
a fan of this song slash song gimmick. Let me peek ahead. Great news, it
doesn’t happen anymore.
Good god does this song go on. I thought it was done a few
times now and it just keeps jolting itself awake. Should have stuck to 3 ½
minutes.
If You Need to, Keep Time on Me
Why are select words not capitalized in the title? The
structure of the title/chorus is making me nuts. It’s || so forced || and artificial. There’s a lot of
reaching here to make sure that everyone knows just how smart this band is. I
don’t care – just make a catchy song. This song is not catchy. It’s pretty much
just the name of the song over a handful of piano chords. That I’ve listened to
parts of like three times now because I keep getting interrupted.
Mearcstapa
What the hell, song names? I’m spending this whole album
having to look you up because YOU DON’T MAKE THE SONG ANY BETTER BY BEING
OBSCURE. This album is full of references designed to impress girls with things
that girls aren’t impressed by. Apparently this has something to do with cryptozoology,
which I should be into. This song at least doesn’t stop, go silent, and then
start a new song but it still pretty much does that by overlaying two songs together.
There’s kind of a light jazzy thing happening here and I don’t like it. I’m
getting pretty bored.
On Another Ocean (January/June)
I feel like I’ve heard this song before but I don’t think I
actually have. It’s just a song that sounds like it could be pretty much
anything soft and acoustic. The songs are getting pretty sparse at this point
in the album, like some of the musicians fell asleep or walked away because of
all the pretentious word-dropping. It doesn’t sound stripped-down, just empty.
BOOM halfway through a song starts! That’s an awful long intro to endure
though. The song part of the song is decent, kind of like a non-dreamy Beach
House. I guess. I’ll still choose Beach House over this every time.
Fool’s Errand
We’re back to the hippie dance-fest. As I was typing that
this song was probably my favorite on the album so far there was an awkward bridge
less than a minute in. My biggest issue with this album is how fickle it is –
it can’t commit to any one sound or even one song. Every song is four or five
parts of songs awkwardly taped together. Cheap tape at that, because things
keep falling off. I no longer like this song.
I Should See Memphis
I bet this band likes some pretty cool stuff. There are lots
of hints throughout the album but I feel like this is pretty overt. “I’ve heard
about Memphis because lots of cool stuff I like talks about it…” But they’re
that dull guy everyone knows who has great taste but no one wants to talk to
him because there’s nothing there under the surface. Now that I’ve trashed them
with minimal information, I’ll say that this song is doing all right by me so
far. The stupid break in the music they can’t seem to stop doing still happens
halfway through but it does a reasonable job of continuing the overall musical
themes. Very folky with strings, probably my new favorite song on the album
except for when he says “Osiris” for no reason. Honestly, I can’t remember most
of the other songs.
This song went silent a minute before it was over and then
some distorted echoing vocals started up. I thought it was a new song, but I
guess it’s all part of this one. If you listen to it, just skip this part. I
don’t know what the hell it’s supposed to be except for a way to mess up people’s
mixes if they want to put this song on there.
Crack-Up
This song is fine I guess. Big surprise, it stops almost
exactly halfway through and becomes a new song. If I cared enough I’d go back
and see if it really happened on every single song but I don’t care so I’m
going to definitively say that it did. I'm pretty sure the album closes with the sound of someone running away.
Album rating: Two dull stars out of five. I still don't care about Fleet Foxes.
Download links:
Tacobell.com
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