mhann24

Lift to Experience - The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads
my bloody valentine - loveless
Rollerskate Skinny - Horsedrawn Wishes
LOOP - A Gilded Eternity
Dragon City - (self-titled)
These Are Powers - Terrific Seasons
Secret Machines - Ten Silver Drops
Dark Fog - The Ultimate Cult of Psychedelic Psychosis
Skywave - Synthstatic
Autolux - Future Perfect

This is a very tricky list to make, and I think a bunch of albums on DiS's list are not shoegaze. Also, I don't like lists where artists are named multiple times. Failure's Fantastic Planet and Built to Spill's Perfect From Now On just barely missed making my list simply because, as great as those albums are, I feel like they fall into the "space-rock" category, equal parts indie rock and shoegaze. A shoegaze album must be all about guitar alchemy. The guitar tone must give the impression of sound as something tactile and be the primary means by which the listener is immersed in a particular reality or emotional state. Within the headspace of the album, it should seem completely possible that the guitar player(s) could create any sound imaginable at will and either pat you on the back or punch you in the face with it. A few criticisms of the DiS list: M83 has WAY too much keyboard crap going on to be classified as shoegaze, for all those pedals Slowdive's guitar sound is almost completely without dimension, and No Age are a punk band, plain and simple. Some might object to the These Are Powers album on my list (I actually would have listed All Aboard Future since it is a little better but felt that that was perhaps too much an amalgamation of diverse influences.), but Pat's altered bass functions as both a bass and a guitar (!) and does the bulk of the heavy lifting texturally on that very eerie and hypnotic album.

If they drew from mbv's musical style that would be alright. What they in fact do is steal melodies. Seriously. Listen to "Thorn" by mbv, and then listen to "Everything With You." This band is stealing and getting away with it BECAUSE they are stealing from a source (early mbv) that listeners are not that familiar with. I wanted to like this band because I want to like any band that is truly inspired by mbv...but the melodies are, for the most part, not original works.

So I listen to lots of bands of this ilk. However, this band manages to cross the line that separates bands who are influenced by mbv from bands that are guilty of plagiarism. Anybody who likes this band has not listened to Ecstasy and Wine or the You Made Me Realise EP closely enough. Sad that since fewer people are familiar with those releases than with, say, loveless, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart will continue to receive positive reviews.

I can understand the confusion about what it is that Pat plays in These Are Powers. I mean, certainly, if we simply look at the instrument, that is a bass. On the other hand, he gets impressive bass and electric guitar sounds of that thing. It's very mysterious and totally awesome. That said, only a 7? REALLY?! Whatever...

See http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/147600-carrie-brownstein-james-mercer-star-in-feature-film

Why does this article fail to mention that Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney co-stars in this? Anyway, she does.

She doesn't really sound like anyone, but just in terms of being a talented female guitar player, Mary Timony and Carrie Brownstein are easy recent reference points.

I never thought I'd post on here again, but Mike Diver is gone? And Marnie Stern coverage?! Wow, this just made my week.

I like to share the hate.

You rate the Beatles a 6, Pavement and the Pixies a 5, and NIRVANA a 2. You have no business contributing anything to any music site that reviews rock bands because you don't know a thing, not one thing about rock music. Most sites would be embarrassed to have anyone contributing to their site who rated all of those bands as you did, but DiS has no standards.

"More often than not, so-so reviews"? Check metacritic.com. The first album generally received favorable reviews, one of which was from Pitchfork (who rarely give any real rock band anything over a 6). So this review makes it official: Other than the message boards, this site sucks. The Duke Spirit are one of the best bands around, but this crappy site would rather hype weak dance punk clones like Foals, bloated prog rock bilge like the Mars Volta, and white boy reggae like Vampire Weekend. Whatever...

Yeah that tiny list is somehow indicative of the entire gargantuan festival. There will never be a bad SXSW, geniuses. The reason is simple math. With over 1000 bands, there will always be something worth seeing. It's just a matter of researching and listening ahead of time.

And I thought the Pixies videos were pitiful.

The length is really what makes a recording an EP. It always seems like people have to have a band tell them that something is an EP before they will perceive it as such, and I don't get that. Really, if it's under 30 minutes, it's an EP. Look at say, Weezer's Green Album (just look, don't listen). It fails to crack the 30-minute mark, so no matter what Rivers Cuomo says, it is an EP.

that I almost didn't notice how you sidestepped almost all of my questions. How courageous.

It's just that there are some absolutes, and Neutral Milk Hotel is a perfect example.

only dads care about reliable reviews? And I thought my country was weird.

Way to be responsible.

Okay Mike, whatever, but for the record, I didn't even know what she looked like when I initially went to her My Space on the basis of the score I saw on Pitchfork. Anyway, you obviously don't get it (the charm and heart comment seriously undermined your credibility), but I find it awfully funny that someone supposedly well-versed in unconventional music would describe someone's music as "compositionally erratic." Equally suspect is the lingering fact that there still has not been a formal review of the album published on the site (You know-put up or shut up. What is there to fear? The coolness police?). I can't speak for the U.K., but over here the album has done rather well. A lot of people came out to see her play in March and July in Austin. But that's irrelevant of course because we're talking about indie rock here, and so the issue for you ought never be whether an album is popular or not but whether it is good (particularly if you have a strong view one way or the other). In Advance of the Broken Arm has been critically acclaimed thus far, so it necessarily demands your attention as a reviewer. Marnie Stern happens to have a decent following on the DiS music board, some of which is comprised of people whose opinions I know you respect. So why not publish a review? Scared of further alienating your readers?

"We are out of touch with what new bands readers might care about, so let's talk about some old ones."

I read a lot reviews on a lot of sites and in magazines. I even went ahead and checked Metacritic before I typed that. There was one review there that was below a 7 (a 5) and even that would not equate with "horrible." So yes, that would make you the only reviewer that I know of with that opinion (that is if you have actually heard the album and that really is your opinion of it).

And if you think that, you would be the only reviewer I know of with that opinion.

for bringing her up. Once again, everyone, In Advance of the Broken Arm was the best album released in 2007, and DiS chose to ignore it.

because it deliberately focuses on a more personal kind of pain. Aeroplane takes personal pain and tries to make sense of it in a universal way. Both albums have amazing songs with Jeff Mangum's blood all over them, but yeah, Aeroplane is better. Not MUCH better but better. And really, I would say that the thing that makes Aeroplane a little better is the way that Mangum chooses to deal with that album's central conflict-it has little to do with the actual songcraft or performances. If you have a pulse and you are interested in indie rock, both should move you deeply. I don't know how to make you feel something you are not feeling, but I guess a 7 for this album further reinforces my belief that empathy will eventually become extinct. So there, if it's not your fault, then you are simply a product of the human race's evolution towards being heartless animals. That said, if I were you, I would embrace "idiot," "immature," and "inexperienced."

"DiS staff"

for confirming that the Dis is asleep on the job.

on this, then your reviewing skills must be called into question. Even the 12-minute drone that ends the album is eerie and poignant. For all the talk indie kids do about how drone/noise is art (no really dude, it is, Wolf Eyes rule), Pree Sisters Swallowing a Donkey's Eye has moved way more people than any of the pretentious drone/noise crap that is usually praised by reviewers. And that's just the drone piece on the album. Anyone who calls this album "embryonic" is obviously an immature and inexperienced reviewer. On Avery Island is a fully realized masterpiece with its own mood, style, and agenda independent of Aeroplane, in the same way that MBV's Isn't Anything is a fully realized masterpiece with its own mood, style, and agenda independent of Loveless. If there was no Aeroplane and there was no Loveless, On Avery Island and Isn't Anything would still be great albums, and no one would ever suggest that they hinted at unfinished business. The fact that there were superior followup albums to On Avery Island and Isn't Anything was completely unlikely and unexpected, truly two of the great miracles in rock music. So when listeners are blessed twice instead of once, it behooves reviewers to not punish the artist in question by calling the previous masterpiece a warmup. Get a clue, kids.

You're wrong.

A 7? You must be an idiot. This is much more like a 9, and Aeroplane is a 10. Not many bands produce an album as good as On Avery Island, never mind Aeroplane.

just further emphasizes how much far superior even mainstream British tastes are to American tastes. I mean, seriously, I hear you guys dissing this girl all the time, but man, if there was only something half this good in mainstream American pop music my world would be so much more tolerable.

But this guy is always wrong. Oh yeah, and the review was virtually incomprehensible. Reminds me of how Pitchfork's writers used to write before everyone started making fun of them.

Could your attempt to provoke me be a little more transparent? I always look at people's ratings when they say something stupid. You rate the Pixies a 10 and the Beatles a 9. With that in mind, the fact remains that Devendra Banhart's fanbase is made up of posers and the hearing impaired.

I hate his voice, and he is one of those people that is constantly trying to be weird for the sake of being weird. If you like him, you are either deaf or a poser.

They don't play with a lot of effects pedals. They use distortion and tremelo. That's it. This has been discussed many times by people who saw the band and by Shields himself.

has something against her. It's the only explanation. Her album came out in February, and it still hasn't been reviewed. Easily amongst the best of the year...

The Magnolia Electric Co. are still the dullest Creedence tribute band on the planet.

You're lukewarm about almost every band that's worth getting excited about.

Yeah, that'd be right in her vocal range.

I always thought it had something to do with Raisinets, a wholly perplexing candy. Who on Earth wants to find a raisin beneath a delicious layer of milk chocolate?!

I don't think they would if they made another album.

Ringo is the rock drumming pioneer. Don't lump him in with those guys.

They sound good. Too bad they exceed my band member cap of five people.

The new stuff sounds great. I'm excited! I just wish we didn't have to wait til the new year for the album.

When are news stories like this going to start using Shields as a source for the amount of money actually spent on Loveless? Have no music writers read the 33 1/3 book on Loveless or any of the interviews Kevin has done in the last three years? Loveless actually cost about half of what McGee has always claimed. The rest of the money was mismanaged and spent on McGee's coke habit.

I like Jimmy Eat World, Bad Religion, Coldplay, My Chemical Romance, Nirvana, the Deftones, Dashboard Confessional, AFI, Yellowcard, Green Day, Good Charlotte, Weezer, the Ramones, Fall Out Boy, Bends-era Radiohead, and Minus the Bear.

You know, every time I meet some dude who almost has good taste in music but not quite because he doesn't like listening to bands that aren't shoved down his throat, Minus the Bear is his favorite band.

The guy DiS wrote about wasn't on either of their albums. I guess he was in the band early on.

I love Ten Silver Drops, and I know plenty of other people who do too. School of Seven Bells sucks, and unfortunately, no matter what Brandon Curtis says, there is no Secret Machines with out Ben Curtis.

Alex, why do you seem to indicate that you are reviewing Animal Collective and Marnie Stern's performances...and then Marnie Stern is not mentioned anywhere in the actual review?

This was one of the loudest bands (if not the loudest) ever. If you fail to grasp the album's heaviness, you are simply not playing it loud enough. All of the harshness, grandiosity, color, dimension, and shape of this album become readily apparent when it is played at a high volume. Volume was a major part of MBV's aesthetic, and it was key to achieving many of the textures on Loveless. If you treat something as background music, that is what it will be. Show the artists you listen to some respect, and you will always get a lot back.