Hate Revisited

I can't stand this cd.

Nice review. I think you sum it up by saying something just seems off. I think a lot of the effort was lost on me. I feel like everything The Delgados were trying to do on Hate was pulled off successfully by Belle and Sebastian. And I'm not even a B+S fan but that's what it seems to me.

Worst comparison ever

I'm going to say that your "Guns 'N Roses meets the Carpenters" description is the most misleading, inaccurate description of a band...of all time. Hilarious.

Hate - The Delgados

Could I have been more excited to listen to this album after you had to go and say, "Dude, you're going to freaking love this album!" after you listened to the initial 13 seconds? I was completely unprepared for what followed. The only way I can truly describe the sound of this album is a musical hybrid of the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev with singers that sing on-key and don't whine. Actually, the female vocalist sounds like...I dunno, a cross between Dubstar's lead singer or the female vocalist of Stars or something like that. The guy sounds generic. He's just kinda there. So, the initial challenge that this album presented is the age old question about copycat bands...if it sounds just like a band you like, should you detest them or should you embrace them? I usually dislike sound alike bands if they sound like a band I really really like, especially if it seems really obvious that they are imitating. So, I'm okay with the Editors and Interpol sounding exactly the same, but, I was not okay with I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody's Business sounding exactly like Dashboard Confessional (because I'm a sensitive girl, I guess). The most heinous of all imitators is, of course, Camouflage and the Great Commandment. I would guess 95% of the human race thinks that The Great Commandment was written and performed by Depeche Mode. I bet DM could play it at their concerts and everyone would say, "Oh yeah! What album is this off again?" Anyway, I kept thinking to myself, "Should I like this because they have better voices than FL or MR?" Every time I got passed it, I would relisten to the album and it would come flooding back. So, I sat there and struggled with it before it finally really got to me. The difference between the Flaming Lips (who I'm ok with) and Mercury Rev (who I really like), and the Delgados seems to reside in the ol' sincercity basket. FL and MR are sincere. The Delgados do not seem sincere. If Jonathan Donahue was singing All You Need is Hate or the Light Before We Land (the two tracks most like Mercury Rev), I would be putting them on a mix CD. And the bad part for the Delgados is that those are the two best tracks (except for the horribly named Child Killers which lyrics have nothing to do with the title). Pretty much this is my review. Not very technical, I can't really put my finger on it, but there's something about it that strikes me as off. Trying too hard to be critically acclaimed. I think that's it. There's nice stuff here. Maybe if I listen more, I'll appreciate the juxtoposition of baroque music and utterly depressing lyrics. But right now, the depressing lyrics just seem to be depressing to try and be cool. And that sucks.

Pulling a Camouflage, I'm ripping off your concept of intangibles, because it hit me as I was walking home today from work. As of now, would I put any one of the songs off this album on a mix CD? And the answer is, "No." Maybe I might send All You Need is Hate to someone as a joke. But, I can't see it making the cut against 20 other songs I might choose.

Overall grade: C- (that seems so low, but it just doesn't register. So, yes, a C-).

The Delgados: Hate

Even though I try not to, I always end up comparing the music I hear from new bands I find to two other bands whose music I’m familiar with. For example, I always end up saying, “They’re like a cross between Band X and Band Y.” I hate that I do it but that doesn’t stop me from doing it every time without fail. To help you understand just how fallible this method is you have to understand that I am by no conceivable means a music scholar. I’m very much a generalist. I see myself and knowing a little bit about a lot of bands; I don’t know everything about every band. Most of the time, I’m not able to put a song I hear from any given band into the context of their career. It’s like I hear a song and that song represents that band in my mind. I know that’s not fair whatsoever but I don’t have time to go back and do a thorough study of the band. So as I got into this album and listened to it more and more the thought that kept coming to my mind was: “This music is like a cross between The Carpenters and Guns N’ Roses.” (Mind you, I wouldn’t be considered a fan of either of those bands [I don’t own an album of either of theirs] so take my statement how you will.)

Tone: The tone of this album is, what I call, the Triple S: shiny, slick and smooth. It’s pretty much everything that I don’t like to see in an album, but that’s fine. I personally prefer some bite to my albums; some banter between band and engineer in the background; some sounds of instruments being shuffled around on the studio floor; footsteps; breathing; coughing; band members cursing under their breath at missing some note; some lo-fi goodness. However, I respect there are bands out there that ride the Triple S wave.

Voice: I think the voices on this album are great. I like there’s a man and a woman and they share the singing duties. And I like the woman’s voice! I wouldn’t run out and get her autograph if I saw her walking down the street but that’s okay. They do have a way of sounding super conceited but what UK band doesn’t so I guess it’s a moot point.

Music: The music is pretty good. I know that sound super lame but there wasn’t much that stood out for me on this one. I’ve got to be honest here. I would never have listened to this album all the way through once—let alone six or seven times—if it hadn’t been for this review thing we’ve got going on. It’s just not my cup of tea. However, I firmly believe that just because I don’t like a particular album that doesn’t mean it isn’t music that is well written and well performed. “Child Killers” is kind of a sweet lullaby (it totally sounds like Obi!); it’s connected in my mind to “All Rise.” There are several spots on this album where the drummer really steals the show—or is the show. I like that. Drums are cool. Although very good advice, the song “Never Look at the Sun” is boring. “Coming In From the Cold” is really the best song on the album. It’s the kind of song you want to take home and share a meal with. There are times when—in the music—I feel the stormy Scottish coastal weather on my face—which is pretty amazing since I’ve never been to Scotland. There are times I feel a sense of their national history. (Never Look At the Sun.) There are times—“Woke From Dreaming”—when the music makes me visualize a black grand piano rising out of the center of a huge concert hall stage lit by thousands of battery-powered candles, surrounded by a full orchestra, and Slash is standing on the piano madly torquing his guitar and Axl is sitting on the piano bench, hunched over the keys, long mess of red hair flipping so awesomely about his head and shoulders (obviously this image is before he went to corn rows). That’s right, “Woke From Dreaming” is the song that makes me most feel this album is a mix of The Carpenters and Guns N’ Roses (although it’s not the only song that makes me feel that way). I think it’s probably a mix of the fact G N’ R were (is, maybe?) so dramatic—like The Delgados—and the fact that Axl seemed to wear a lot of plaid back in the day. (Is there a Scottish “kind” of plaid?) Anyway, it just reminds me of the live video for “November Rain.” Just a word concerning songs that have foreign languages in them i.e. “Woke From Dreaming.” If the entire song in is a foreign language, it’s cool. If you start off in English and then have parts of the song in a foreign language, it pretentious. And if you have back-up singers chanting in a foreign language like medieval christian nymphs, it’s pretty much just weird.

Lyrics. Nothing interesting to report. Except any irony or whatever must be lost on me because I can’t really stand “All You Need is Hate.”

The Intangibles for this week:

• How does the album make me feel? Bored—except for “Coming In From the Cold” which is awesome.
• How does this album compare to fellow Scots Camera Obscura’s Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi? Not. Even. Close. We’re talking Northern and Southern Hemisphere here.
• Had my friend’s wife who is really into bands like this (foreign, women singers, ride the Triple S wave, etc.) heard about The Delgados? No.
• Did listening to this album make you appreciate Oxford Collapse’s Bits from last week more than I initially did? Very, very much so.
• How do you envision The Delgados spending their Sunday mornings off? Playing Phase 10 and getting really serious about playing by the rules.
• What song off this cd would I play if I was giving Britt Daniel a ride to Six Flags? It has to be “Woke From Dreaming.” “Dude, you gotta hear how much this song sounds like a mix between The Carpenters and Guns N’ Roses! Oh, and, Britt, are you, uh, going to pay for parking or what?”

Grades:
Tone: 1/5
Voices: 2/5
Music: 2/5 (Mostly because of “Coming In From the Cold.”)
Lyrics: 1/5
Intangibles: 2/5

Total: 8/25

Reply

I think you kicked my trash in relation to the overall awesomeness of the review. Wow. I wish I had thought of the John Darnielle/Whole Foods thing. It might be the single greatest judgement tool a music reviewer could have. You're like a poor man's King Solomon.

Review: Oxford Collapse, Bits--REVISED!

All I could really think to say about this album is: I like it.

I know, I know, there has to be more than that. There has to be quantified evidence: stats and numbers and pie charts and bar graphs and 3-D graphics that demonstrate why I like this record. Problem is I’ve never been about numbers. Or graphs. Or proof. I never debated in high school because I can’t do that. I literally cannot do it. I don’t think like that. I don’t think quickly or aggressively or analytically. For me, thinking analytically is like being forced to put on stainless steel underwear. I like something because I like something and if you disagree that’s totally fine but I have no desire to discuss it with you. Let’s shake hands and be on our separate ways and never talk of it again, Pumpkin.

So when Doug suggested we do this weekly album review on one hand I was pumped to have a reason to listen to new music. On the other hand, I was utterly deflated because I’d have to demonstrate why I like music. But, as I listened to this album all week I found that it’s not a bad thing to know why I like music. It was enlightening to me to be able to pinpoint what makes me like music. So, here goes.

First of all: tone. The music on Bits feels light and whimsical and unserious and unpolished; lo-fi. It doesn’t sound like they spent months in the studio which pretty much equates death for an album to me. There’s probably a graph I can draw that shows the longer a band is in the studio the more the album sucks. Bands get bogged down by time in the studio. Creativity withers. Great albums are similar to what I remember about light particles from Physical Science 101—the more you try to pin them down the more they elude you. And conversely, the less you try to pin them down the more you know about them (or in the case of songs, the better they are). I have no idea if that analogy would stand up scientifically but I think it would so there you go.

Next: voice(s). I really like the voices. I’m pretty sure the singer’s voice is the first thing I judge when listening to any new band. I don’t care if the voice is a crappy voice. I'm not looking for any American Idols in my music. I’ll take a voice with limited clarity and smoothness and talent over a perfect but pretentious voice any day of the year. I cannot stand a voice that says, “I’m freakin awesome” regardless of the lyric it is singing. From the initial “I can’t remember things…I can’t remember things. I just don’t know what to do…oo…oo,” and in the elevated, harmonizing yelps on “The Birthday Wars” and the distant, marching choruses of “Children’s Crusade” I knew I liked these guys’ voices. And I like there’s more than one singer. Matching scratchy, squeaky, yelling, stretching voices make me cheer for a band. I can connect with that. I can’t connect with perfect voices. Oh, and I like the funny-voiced female background singer on “John Blood.”

Music is next. There’s nothing moving about the music on this album. Not that it’s not catchy. I’ve been whistling the cello hook from “A Wedding” all week. I think the transition between “A Wedding” and “Featherbeds” is one of my favorite moments on the album. It moves from the organic simplicity of human voice and strings to a brassy-cymbols-almost-fuzzy-bass-and-canned-drums-sounding splash. And I love the yelling chorus on “Young Love Delivers.” I think it totally redeems the lame beginning of that song (more on that to follow). “Children’s Crusade” is a pretty little spot for me, although I don’t know how it will stand up against the test of time. For now it's certainly pretty but it could be fleeting. However, I love the little interludes in that song that make it sound like they’re going to break into “La Bamba” by Los Lobos. I get all excited to sing, “La la la la La Bamba!” and then it goes back to the pretty little march. But that’s fine.

Lyrics. In general I'm torn when it comes to lyrics. One part of me says I really couldn’t care less about the meaning of lyrics. I don’t care what bands are saying these days. I don’t care what issues are swelling in their precious little hearts. Who cares. I certainly don’t. The other part of me, though, being an English major, certainly likes to hear--and look for--creatively worded lyrics. So that division is a challenge to reconcile when I listen to music. The major concern I have about lyrics is this: Don’t write sentimental lyrics. That’s it. I won't tolerate it. As long as they're not sentimental I don't care. And I don't care what they mean. So, lyrically on Bits, I haven’t really found any sentimental lyrics. I tried to look the lyrics up on the internet but couldn’t find any. I do like the line, “In your presence, we’ll acquiesce,” from “For the Winter Coats.” The only lyric that really bothers me for some reason is the first line of “Young Love Delivers”: “My love came back from China, brought me a pocket camera.” I don’t know why but it just pisses me off. Like I said above, though, the chorus totally redeems that song: I want to pull over to the side of the road, raise my arms and yell, “You’re so sweet, thanks for asking! We’re doing fine for our steady slow decline!” (if that’s even what they say). Who knows. I don’t. And, frankly, I don’t care.

Finally, for me, are The Intangibles—a series of five short answer, unquantifiable responses to the album. The Intangibles are: 1) How does the album make me feel? 2) Is this music unique? 3) Would I go see the band? 4) How would I recommend the album to someone? And, finally, 5) What song off this CD would I want playing in my car if I was giving John Darnielle a ride to Whole Foods Market?

• How does the album make me feel? Bits happens to make me feel young. Like I’m kicking it in the basement of my best friend’s house after school and we’re talking about sports and scoring chicks. It makes me feel like, “Hey this isn’t the greatest thing in the world but it’s cool and I’m young and there’ll be plenty of time for that stuff later.” I would’ve loved this album when I was 17 and that's fine with me. It’s carefree and loud in parts and there’s yelling and some pretty great guitar and drum parts and even some feedback which totally reminded me of the early 90’s.
• Is this album unique? Honestly, there’s a lot of influence from many other bands in this music. For that it doesn’t really stand out as unique. Entertaining? Yeah. Thrilling and moving and the only place on the face of the earth to find just this exact music? No.
• Would I go see the band? If they played my hometown, yeah, I think so. If I had to travel? No.
• How would I recommend the album? “Hey have you heard Bits from Oxford Collapse? It’s alright. If you get a chance to hear it, you may want to.”
• What song off this CD would I want playing in my car if I was giving John Darnielle a ride to Whole Foods Market? Probably "Featherbeds" or "John Blood."
  

Grades:

Tone—4

Voices—3

Music—3

Lyrics—3

Intangibles—3

Total: 16

For the purpose of setting the standard: Zero is the lowest possible score on both the individual components and the total. Two is an average score on the individual components for a total score of 10 for a straightforward, average album. Five is the highest score possible for the individual components adding up to a score of 25 for the perfect album. Albums that are twenty-fives are (for example): The National Alligator, The Unicorns Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?, AMFM Mutilate Us and Possum Dixon Possum Dixon.