September 2003

One of These Reviews is Not Like the Other

Prefuse 73: One Word Extinguisher
This album gets off to a great start, but after it becomes clear that the entire thing doesn't keep up the same pace as the first three tracks it can be kind of disappointing. The energy of the music starts to fad after that. Don't get me wrong, there's still some tracks after the first three, but for me it's kind of touch and go.

But to back-track for a moment- Prefuse 73 is a very interesting flavor of hip hop. Maybe the Stereolab of hip hop. Or think maybe Boards of Canada coming out with a hip hop album. I've seen this referred to as "glitch hop", but I think that's dumb, so I won't repeat it. Neither should you. Basically, what we have here is fairly down-tempo hip hop with the occasional staticesque type effects dropped into the mix.

At any rate, there's those first three great tracks of break beat driven, soulful hip hop and a few others mixed in. And rest that I felt to be somewhat uninteresting still isn't bad. I'll put this on and when it gets to one of the better tracks (of which there are maybe 10 out of 21) I really enjoy it. The rest of it goes by fairly unnoticed as I sit here doing my work. The boring half of the CD doesn't offend the ear, but it also doesn't really get my feet going either.

Flat Top Tony & The Purple Canoes: 15 Minutes of Fame
Unfortunately, neither this album nor this band exist. They definitely should, though. I'd love to go to see a Flat Top Tony show when he comes to town with The Purple Canoes. I'm sure that they are a really, really tight band. The real mystery here, though, is not why I am making such nonsense up, but what would their music sound like? Would it be funk, or some kind of Motown revival? Maybe some crazy bluegrass derivative than nobody's ever thought of? At any rate, these guys could sound like anything and I'm sure they'd be good. Just as long as they don't turn out to be yet another trite, formulaic, uninspired alternative rock band. I can't believe what passes for alternative rock these days. Alternative to what, you might ask. Alternative to music worth listening to. I think I'd rather listen to crap like Color Me Badd than Good Charlotte. Flat Top Tony & The Purple Canoes would blow all of those chumps out of the water.

The Walkmen: Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone
This is news to nobody, but this is a great album. I just thought I'd go on the record about this record.

The Walkmen and Interpol seem to be starting a new subgenre of rock music that is heavily inspired by Joy Division. I have never especially cared much for Joy Division, but whatever this is all about is fine by me, because it's great stuff. The Walkmen, however, do differ significantly from Interpol. Interpol is finely polished, hi-fi, heavy duty post punk rock, or whatever you might want to call it. The Walkmen, while having obviously similar influence, differ greatly.

The Walkmen are fairly lo-fi, for starters. But it the kind of way where you say, "Yes, it should sound like this. Good thinking." They are also obviously influenced very much so by the Pixies. In fact, there's one song on the album, though I can't remember which one because I am not listening to it right now, that can easily be mistaken for an actual Pixies song.

There's a lot of rockin' tracks on this album. In fact, it all rocks. And while having many stunningly obvious influences, the Walkmen manage to remain quite distinct in their sound. The use of piano, I might add, is inspired. It works very, very well.

Finally, I should say that though "We've Been Had" was used in a Saturn commercial, it's still a fantastic song, probably the best present on this album, in fact. It should be on the radio all the time, as should at least half of the songs from Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone.