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Cripes, I have no excuse for not writing. But now, after hearing a bunch of new music seeing a bunch of bands, I've got a Mog backlog. So now I'm going to make up for it.
I'll start with an easy, yet possibly provocative item:
Holy crap, I really like this new R.E.M. album!
I mean, I like it possibly more than -any- R.E.M. album, and it's definitely better than anything in at least 10 years. And it's largely because - as Stephen Colbert pointed out when the band visited his show - there's not a mandolin to be found on this recording. It's all big guitars, and it rocks.
R.E.M. had become one of those bands I wanted to still like, but their music just stopped hitting me in the gut. I gave up on them somewhere around Monster (and, in retrospect, the earlier "Shiny Happy People" and "Stand" make me queasy now too).
But Accelerate? It's great power pop, like stuff from the '90s. Totally compelling and honest. I can believe again.
Before this weekend, I'd never heard of "Red Eye" on Fox News, and now I hope I never have the occasion to watch it again. Who are these schmoes interviewing Sam Endicott?
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/2170094
(sorry, no embed code available)
You ever wonder how they work out who opens for whom on indie small-club tours? Saturday night in LA, A Place to Bury Strangers killed as an opening band for Holy Fuck.
Until the day of the show, I thought APTBS was the headliner. Don't get me wrong -- Holy Fuck was great, too. But APTBS seems to be getting more buzz, and they look like a band going somewhere.
On stage, APTBS lived up to that buzz -- in fact it felt like seeing Janes Addiction or Nirvana in a club right before they got big. It's clear that APTBS is more than just a Jesus and Mary Chain ripoff.
And yes, as rumored, A Place to Bury Stranger is clearly the loudest band on Earth.
Comments
Seen APTBS twice now, just last Friday most recently (review on my MOG page). I think they're wonderful, whereas Holy Fuck were . . . boring as fuck. I actually don't think they're particularly loud in terms of decibels; they just have a really robust sound and use feedback noise as an instrument in its own right. Glad you liked them and thanks for the review!
Comments
But Accelerate? It's great power pop, like stuff from the '90s. Totally compelling and honest. I can believe again. I have to agree with 99% of what you say, and yet.......honest? There are times through-out the cd when it feels like the look backward is......not forced, but...studied, perhaps. It certainly is the most satisfying cd from the band in a long time. But I think New Adventures In Hi-Fi got unfairly overlooked.
I totally agree. I didn't want to like this album. I wanted to analyze it as another misstep in their decline from Rock Heaven. But.....
Like you say their music didn't do in the last ten years or so, this one really hit me in the gut. From the first song, "Living Well Is The Best Revenge" the guitars charge in and never let me go. I dare say I love REM again.
I agree about Monster not getting me like I thought it would, especially after the great Automatic for the People, but I have to disagree about "Stand". Only because it was the song that got me into REM in the first place and it's a sing-songy pop nugget that is placed in a great album that is "Green". I just wish they go back to more of that two-part harmony between Mike Mills and Michael Stipe like they used to.
Oh man do I ever want to like this one. I'm a Green and pre-Green, and Green Green the Rushes Grow guy myself. I've held off my morbid curiosity for this one.
Dan, do you promise that I wont be disappointed?