July 2010
5 posts
2 tags
Turn Left Before the Arena Swallows You: Andrew...
Prologue: I’m going to switch things up a bit by only doing one album per entry. This will be especially important with the next artist, Andrew Bird, because I haven’t really listened to the guy before. This decision should also help me focus the length of my entries, which has seemed a bit fickle as of late. I have a serious amount of expectations for Andrew Bird based on hearsay, and...
3 tags
We're Going to Have to Shorten This: ...And You...
Prologue: Last time, I continued my policy of little to no background research in writing my critiques. I will continue this again today. I picked up Worlds Apart by …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead (Trail of Dead from this point forward, kay?) on a complete whim and never followed it up with another purchase. I didn’t do this in distaste, but I certainly wasn’t hungry...
7 tags
If It's From the South, I Guess It's Southern
Prologue: Whew, after the beating I just took with Alice in Chains, I’m going to have to cheat a little bit and dip into my collection of… collections. Although I intend to go through each artist alphabetically, sometimes I’ll come across an artist with only one song. This is usually because that song is part of a greater collection. I’ve already passed up the Kill Bill...
The Immortality of a Rooster: Alice in Chains
Prologue: Alice in Chains is supposedly a grunge band. I always thought this was weird. They tune their guitars; their singer cares about pitch; they produce a pretty lush sound. It seems to me that the only thing grungy about this band (from the album, Dirt, anyways) is the dark mood instilled by depressing lyrical content and kooky horror soundtrack chord progressions through pretty awesome...
4 tags
More Is Less: Albert King
Prologue: I don’t imagine that it will be easy for a guy like me to explain what’s good about the blues. It’s pretty heavily based on repetition. I no longer believe that it’s good enough to say “this guy’s just a good guitarist”. Not that I would have any problem saying that about Albert King. The guy exudes taste. He snakes through a cornucopia of...
