hexagram

acting like tits, and then splitting up is equivalent to 'the Manson Family killings, Apartheid and every Tsunami ever'.

Either my sarcasm-o-tron needs recalibrating and I don't get the joke (it doesn't seem to be done in a ironic way), or this is just really badly written and why are you comparing being in the NME to all those things, bloody hell.

Also: 'It always used to be the songs that masterminded the fuck-dusting the drums would give the deranged genius synths as the Bolan guitars pouted and Vanessa’s insane backing warble went bonkers'

Is that a sentence?

I'm all for guest reviewers and all that, but sometimes they really need editing.

Good musician, top bloke, waffle-y writer. I'm sure the film is good, but this piece isn't, I don't think. Too much of the hey-look-at-me-I'm writing to it, and it gets on my proofreader tits. Mike Diver writes like this too, and it must be stopped.

'Let’s call these tangents 'the secondary narrative'. (I flirted with the idea of calling it the “diminutive narrative” but, despite being funny, that’s not really fair to anyone.)'

You flirted with the idea of cracking a parenthetical joke, but didn't in the end. Why even mention it? No need to show your working. It's not like the piece needs filling to meet a word count, bloody hell.

'Maybe you had finished that week’s copy of Select and needed something to read during the bus ride home. We have to assume here that the sleeve notes of whatever Martha Reeves or Gay Dad or New York Dolls compendium you’d just bought were not fit to satiate your appetite for a print accompaniment to your on-the-move audio treats supplied courtesy of a Sony Walkman. '

I don't like it when people try to use a higher register than they're used to like this, it just comes across as clunky and pretentious. What's the point in using 50-point words in this sentence? Are you trying to make listening to a Walkman on the bus home mock-heroic or something? 'On the move audio treats...' seems like you're trying to buff the word count while appearing clever at the same time. All in an aside in an example in a parting thought.

Also, Select magazine was monthly.

I wasn't even talking about the quality of the record for the most part. Other than to say it's great, nothing changed there. Most of my comments are on the review itself, and since this is the comment section for the review, it seems like a good place to put them. Like marckee says, I'm not the one trying to compare it to Nevermind.

If you just want to go and listen to it on its own merits, go right ahead, nobody's stopping you.

According to Wikipedia, the first version of Pro Tools was released in 1991. And Garbage's Version 2.0 was recorded and mixed entirely in Pro Tools... by Butch Vig. Hmm.

It reminds me of his Team Sleep gig review from 2005, where the first two paragraphs are about him getting moaning about the doorman and name-dropping that he'd been to a Goldsmiths art show and had lots of special CDs in his bag. That was a while ago, but he hasn't dropped the habit.

'Because you did have to be there, to see them, while they lasted. I did'

Just need to talk about myself for a minute there!

Don't like the big paragraph about the meaning of the meaningful lyrics either. For one thing, there's no mention of any actual lyrics there at all, so we just have to trust Mike and his interest in art to tell us about the stunning, shocking wordplay. It gets all very lit-student word salad, which I think is a prominent feature in Mike's writing. 'Are we not moved to their side, tasting their sweat and smelling their stink?' I really dislike that faux-intellectual 'are we not' whenever it's used, so that's just me, but come on. I also hate the shucks-you-guys 'Just me?' after, like 'oh hey, I'm a normal guy who just happens to be a literary genius'. This is also full of cliches: pictures paint a thousand words; 'Touch the oil' - like a painting, get it?; mind's eye. It reads kind of impressively at first, but all it really says is, 'ATTI have great lyrics because I say they do and I'm so clever. Also, I saw them live and you didn't'.

'Self-indulgent forays into the thesaurus' is the most appropriate line he's written, I think.

Mike Diver is a bit revered on this site, but fuck it, I don't like his stuff.

This whole piece is labouring a RoC=Nevermind comparison that doesn't quite gel. RoC is a great record, but it had nothing like the impact Nevermind had (where's the 10 year re-release?), ATTI's singer was never an icon, and the fact they both had singles early in the tracklist (not the same place, mind) is not at all unique to these records. 'Loud' records with 'quiet' songs in them is not a special thing either; Deftones' White Pony with Teenager in the middle is an example of that. A

Andy Wallace has produced and mixed a lot of records, mostly in the louder end of the spectrum, but despite that coincidence, RoC sounds nothing at all like Nevermind. It's so much louder, arriving as it did in with the wave of early 00's compressed Pro Tools rock albums (Sunna and the Foo Fighters for instance). Nevermind is quieter, but more dynamic for it.

This all smacks of, 'look at me being clever with my artistic comparisons'.

Guns Blazing was the best track on there IMO.

Really odd decision to relegate Def Surrounds Us to deluxe version bonus track. Multiple versions of albums annoy me anyway (The Outsider had two versions too, with rejiggled tracklistings IIRC, not just an extra tune at the end). If Shadow has a problem with the techno-cultural climate, why is he doing this again? It reminds me of Smashing Pumpkins' Zeitgeist, with a different version for whichever US supermarket you bought it at. Seems a bit 'gotta catch 'em all'.

Anywho, that tune was a) incredible and b) a sign that Shadow 'had it' again. It could have been the centrepiece of the album.

After parting ways with the latter: MC dälek is still there, Still is gone.

TDOSI was mastered better than their previous records, but their drum sound is still mostly terrible on the 'non-glitchy' parts. It sounds like they use the same set of samples on almost every track (do they use a live drummer in the studio?). Same boxy snare, same crashes, same fake-sounding toms. It sounds to me like they're trying to make live drums sound artificial, or samples sound like a drummer, and it falls between the two stools. I love them otherwise, it's just really annoying that a band who take so much care over sound have such crappy-sounding drums.

Ultimate mega-truth

But Loveless has, like, no bottom end at all - it could seriously benefit from a sympathetic remastering, rather than making it all loud. I think I read somewhere that Kurt Ballou thought it could use a one-over, and he'd like to do it. This too would be ace.

everybody wants to post, like they've got something to say - but nothing comes out when they click Post Reply, just a bunch of gibberish. Motherfuckers act like they forgot about your man there.

Got postponed due to a false alarm too, which meant Garrison and Instruction couldn't play support on the rescheduled date. Instead, we got Twofold, who were good, and Minus, who were not.

Of Stylus and Imperfect Sound Forever fame, on DiS?

Hurrah!

'That's why I'm a disembodied skull, on a pole, in the middle of a swamp.'

Murray for pope!

This one doesn't hit as hard as A Healthy Distrust, but I reckon it'll be a grower.

Incidentally, while Sage Francis was indeed on the Sea Lion 12", so was Saul Williams...

(dammit)

be fooled by that rocks that he's got.