It's a rare occasion when one of our local outfits appears on the influential Pitchforkmedia site, the maker or breaker of so many indie artists via dense, earnest, self-indulgent critical verbiage overloaded with adjectives and posted up alongside rationale-free ratings. Fortunately, our latest crew of homegrown outfits to face the 'fork fared pretty well, especially considering a 9.0 is the highest score the site-zine-blog gives (see: the Field)
American Catastrophe, Excerpts from the Broken Bone Choir
"Excerpts is confusingly colorful, painted in various shades of gray and blood red."
(Maybe if they'd used a less confusing color palette -- fewer shades of blood red, perhaps -- the reviewer would've given 'em a 6.7.)
Fourth of July, On the Plains
"The frontman of Lawrence, Kan., septet Fourth of July, Hangauer knows what it's like to be an under-30, hopelessly romantic Midwestern kid who likes to party and address last night's regrets in fleet verses and big, grinning choruses lined with rock'n'roll guitars and handclap rhythms."
(True, true. Yesterday while taking out the trash, I overhead my 27-year-old neighbor addressing his regrets with fleet verses and a big chorus or two, which I do believe were grinning.)
Minus Story, My Ion Truss
"The anthemic "Stitch Me Up" benefits hugely its [sic] wide-open live drum sound, as do "Battle of Our Lives" and "Pretty in the Light" which each use the band's quirky, fitful song structures to amplify the lyrics' own oblique interior dramas."
(I think the writer has an oblique interior drama.)
Comments (0)