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- The Little Explorer »
There was a time when ‘Chair Legs / Air! Displace This Smoke’ would have melted my brain; a time before I realised that a song with changing and fractured time signatures and rapidly transmogrifying can, behind the surface, be just as predictable and ordinary as one that is happy to rest on 4/4 and move easily from verse to chorus and back again.
Both songs on The Little Explorer’s latest release, a Double A-side single that clocks in at just over eight minutes overall, tend to suffer from a forced, and most often failing, approach to take the listener by surprise, with acapella vocals and punches of distortion interlinking with the main melodies of the songs. Neither of the songs are essentially bad, they just tend to gently tread the waters that Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies caused tsunamis with on tracks such as ‘Spooks The Horse’ and ‘Ores’.
Those looking to escape the constraints of straight-up post-hardcore may find interest in The Little Explorer’s weaving, knowingly off-center music, but anyone familiar with the previously mentioned YMSS or fellow Midlands based outfit The Lucida Console will find nothing of interest here. A shame, because behind it all you feel that with a little more magic and less mechanics The Little Explorer would be capable of so much more.
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- The Little Explorer - Chair Legs / Air! Displace This Smoke
- The Little Explorer - Chair Legs / Air! Displace This Smoke
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The Little Explorer
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aren't midlands based
they're from my town halifax
outskirts of leeds in west yorkshire
actually it's rather north
and about 4 hours away from birmingham, which is also counted as midlands
The Little Explorer's
last EP; Sky/Moon, was utterly fantastic. And I liked it a heck of a lot more than any Youthmovie track I've heard. It was because on that EP, the 'splorer weren't about the jerkiness as much as YMSS; the intricacies were subtler, more about the different layers in the tracks.
I haven't heard this EP yet, but I'll be really disappointed if they actually have gone downhill, because I've had high hopes for them.
I always felt
that The Little Explorer are a sort of American Football-lite, I do like them but it feels like it has been done before but better, I'm interested to hear this though.
this really has annoyed
me. Even though the review is fair enough and i can slightly see your point i just absolutely adore chair legs just so so much. It's amazing.
*USULKS*
The Little Explorer
are rockier, I'd say. And they have the bigger climaxes - when a song of theirs starts twinkley, it often flows to somewhere a bit crunchier, with the backing screams. American Football certainly never had backing screams.
i heard of the explorer
way before i heard of youth movies which means that they were around first and youth movies copied Them. ok maybe not but youth movies seem to be too busy changing tempo that they forget about the tunes. which the explorer do not, last time i checked. cos i haven't heard this one yet. although that one where they go 'an affinity with infinity!' was amazing.
well its not a review of their other stuff
i enjoyed them live about a year or so ago, but this song doesnt grip me at all.
and i didnt say they copied ymss, i just said ymss do it better.
Jordan*
chair legs
is the song he's talking about, how could not recognize that line? Did you even listen to the song?
POOR EFFORT
no
i didnt listen to this song. i ate the CD and made an accurate guess as to what it would sound like.
i didnt remember one line from one of the hundreds of songs ive heard in the past couple weeks. sorry
that's quite
good, because i got that line mixed up with one off their album
'oops'
EMBARRESED SMILE
yes
i did listen again, and found no such lime/line. hang your head in shame
I thought this was a good effort
and i'm really looking forward to the new album..
I didn't notice
any time sig changes in these songs, just dynamic shifts. I think the Little Explorer are wway more danceable than YMSS with better tunes and crescendos to boot. YMSS just have better production behind them. I have nearly crashed my car while driving to this single and rocking out on more than one occasion.
I don't think the new album will happen any time soon. It appears Reveal Records have canned it; somebody needs to start a "Save the Little Explorer" campaign. Unfortunately I'm washing my hair.
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