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I'm a year late with this, I know. Stuck Mwng on again last night and suddenly thought, shit, I'm sure there was something I meant to buy a while ago.
It wasn't worth the wait. I'm really not very impressed with it right now. The first half is so tedious that I keep forgetting that it's on - it plays in the background but never manages to keep my attention for more than ten seconds at a time. Zoom! is alright, but it's painfully obvious that the guys were listening to the Beta Band when they were writing it, and then it goes to pot with a real dirge of an instrumental lead-out that goes on forever. Not a good way to start an album. Atomik Lust is, again, alright, but not anything better than that. It suffers most from where it's placed in the running list, I think - sounds more like a track that belongs towards the tail-end of a record than right at the beginning.
And that it's just dull, up until Lazer Beam, which rocks the fuck out and is *proper* SFA. It's the first point in the album with some imagination on display, where the tune is strong enough to grab you, where you remember that you've got it playing. Fuck, the album should have opened like this. "This is a fanfare introduction to a high-powered purposeful theme!" Yeah, it is, but why the christ did you make me go through half an hour of nothingness before it turned up, Gruff? Even then, it's only the chorus that sticks in the memory - the verses may as well not even be there.
I like Frequency. It's pretty. But also a bit reminiscent of the Boo Radleys' later stuff when it comes to the chorus. I also like the Boo Radleys, though, so I guess that's fair enough. I'm not knocked back, mind - I like it, but can't offer up much more praise than that. It's a highpoint of this album, but that's not saying all that much.
Then there's an instrumental track. Why do I want an SFA instrumental? Answer: I don't.
Psyclone!'s cool enough. Too long for what it is, though.
Nice Faces-style intro to Back on a Roll. The rest of the song doesn't even begin to live up to the promise of those opening nine seconds.
Cloudberries is excellent. Best song here, easily. Huge great dollops of Gorkys-style delicate tunesmithery. God, I miss Gorkys. Cabin Fever is also great, if not quite to the same standard.
So, yeah. It's a duffer, with a couple of standout moments that you only discover if you're able to get through the majority of it without falling asleep. I'm hugely dissapointed. The pattern of good album/shit album/good album continues. Hopefully, anyway - would mean that the next one will be a doozy. |
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