I’m unreasonably excited for this album so it can only fail
in my eyes and ears.
3WW
One heck of an instrumental intro. I kind of miss having a
full track instrumental intro but this is good enough. Old-timey voice is maybe
not my favorite. OK sure, they’re British but I’ve listened to a LOT of alt-J
so it’s a little hard to believe some just developed this massive accent. AH…there
we go. Two and a half minutes before we get to the voice I know and love. That
slight rasp/break in his voice is so great. The shift at three and a half
minutes is great. Distortion without being distorted. There are so many voices
in this song though. I’m hoping they call come together. OK, there they did it
a bit with the nice “I just want to love you in my own language”. Water noises
on songs is the new hot thing this year.
In Cold Blood
There’s no way to listen to this without thinking of Flight
Of The Conchords but that’s not the worst musical reference. I don’t know if I’m
supposed to think of the humans being dead or not right now. The song itself is
strong, at least all the parts are. Halfway through this song and it’s also
pretty disjointed like the first one. There are elements of funk and soul
hidden throughout but unlike some of the songs from the last album they’re not
obvious copies. I appreciate that. I still wish the song (album?) would pick a
groove and stick to it. I’ll always enjoy it when someone shout-sings “LA LA LA
LA LA” and there’s a lot of that here. The build of both songs has been really
great.
House of The Rising Sun
The original song by this name is one of my all-time
favorite songs for no reason that I can articulate. It’s just a monster of a
song that cuts you in half and makes you watch as it dances around in the
resulting gore. So there, I lied. I articulated it. Sometimes alt-J songs sound
a little like a bunch of guys hanging around fiddling with instruments and
someone accidentally hit “Record”. When it works it’s amazing but if it’s too
obvious it can be annoying. There’s a little of the annoying in here but I’ll
wait it out. I like guitar string scraping a lot but this song is mostly
dinking around with neat sounds but it’s just not coming together for me. I
checked out for a minute there. Yeah, it never came together. A real missed
opportunity.
Hit Me Like That Snare
Those are some jungle yelps at the start there. This is very
60s garage rock, which is fine with me but I feel like I’m doing a lot of that
qualifying so far. Way too much distortion on his voice and STILL nothing to
bob my head to. I have no idea what he’s trying to do with the vocals. It’s not
quite a snarl or a sneer and the stupid distortion is awful. Now some woman is
speaking Japanese and/or nonsense at me and the yelps are back. The last song
was disappointing but this one is just annoying. I told myself not to hold this
to the standard of their first album (not much can meet that standard) but bleh
bleh bleh. Oh good, shouted group profanity. I hate this song so much.
Deadcrush
Is every song going to be a different musical genre, just
with a weird filter over the top? This is like late-90s goth techno or some
crap. I’m trying so hard not to be angry and write off the rest of this album.
What’s most irritating is that there are some absolutely wonderful parts hidden
in the last few songs TIME TO SING IN HIGH VOICE but they’re not cohesive
enough for me to really spend any time on and instead I’m hearing the
production tricks. MORE HIGH VOICE The second high voice isn’t as goofy as the
first one. For all my complaining, at least this song hits a decent groove in a
few spots. I could really do without the spoken-word sample though.
Adeline
I’m writing this before I’ve heard anything to say that
Adeline is a fantastic name. I think I had a distant relative named Adeline who
was probably a lesbian farmer way before it was cool. I’m ready to go to the hundred-year-old
hip lesbian farm with this song. The finger-picking is nice, and a minute in no
one has sworn at me and the distortion effects are politely hidden in the
corners of the song, only peeking out at appropriate times. I didn’t write
anything for the last minute because MAN I really like this song. Even if they’re
mostly repeating the same sequences, they’re great sequences and they’re all
layering and building on each other. Why couldn’t the whole album have been
like this? “And the old triangle went jingle-jangle” manages to make me think
of the amazing first alt-J album AND Nick Cave all at once. This song is so
great that all the other songs probably did stupid tricks that sound bad just to
try to impress this one.
Last Year
The song length is going up and I take that as a good sign.
This song opens with whispery vocals and light guitar strumming. No way this
one doesn’t build to something too. Let’s just hope it’s on par (or even
remotely close) to the last song. OK, so the build-up is not huge but I
appreciate the subtlety and being so stripped down is nice. Not just after the
last song but also after the mess of songs three and four. Having two crap
songs on an eight-song album is kind of rough. The female vocalist is a nice
touch.
Pleader
The intro is making me think of a European art cartoon. An
Euroartoon, if you will. And you will. Because there are no words so all you
can think about are slightly distorted human figures swaying lightly as they
hike through a stylized village. WORDS! This goes back to some of the old-timey
themes that popped up in some of the other songs. STOP STOPPING! More
disjointed pieces that are pulling me out. The ominous piano is fun but now it
stopped again. I’m being jerked around by the renaissance fair rave. There are
some really beautiful parts to this and it’s a nice way to close out the album.
I just wish that (1) the album had more of consistent themes that this was
tying together and (2) that it didn’t spend the first half of the song starting
and stopping. I feel like they couldn’t decide how to end the song so they went
with the safe option.
Rating: Four giant laser-emitting turkey legs out of five.
25% of the album is unlistenable but there are some real high points.
Download links:
Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament Full Album Leak Server
Omerta.is
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