a thread for Italians Do It Better

I'm kind of blown away by this... what are others' thoughts?

I think on first listen it was tough to get past how good the first 5/6 tracks are. I listened to it again all the way through, and while I still think it's long I'm loving it.

so how do i get the double t-shirt

http://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel/chromatics-kill-for-love-album

Full album stream fyi

This is great so far. Up to Candy, could be the best thing I've heard on IDIB besides After Dark.

This record is my favorite thing right now.

this could blow up pretty big if everyone who swooned over that kavinksy track gets into it

whole shebangs available to stream

http://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel/chromatics-kill-for-love-album

just finished this, definitely too much to take in on one listen but its phenomenal. The last track is surprisingly like tim hecker/fennesz find of ambient thing

really feelin this tbh fyi

This is the best thing I've heard all year.

has pitchdork weighed in on this one yet?

WHO CARES

my my hey hey

bnm is here to stay

considering they loved the overblown, often tedious M83 double album, they're gonna hate this for being too long and unfocussed.

mad love for the autotuned trax on this one

title track on this is pretty awesome

not use how far into it I will get before I lose focus though

this could blow up pretty big if everyone who swooned over that kavinksy track gets into it

otm

ok i was wrong about p4k

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16452-kill-for-love/

Really like "kill for love" although, somehow, I feel like it's not as good as I'd like it to be after the intro.
I'm quite excited by this album, going to order it now !

it's a really icy, arms-length sort of album. full of repetitive, spacey probable-creepers. good on first listen, but looking forward to relating to this more when i'm feeling, i dunno, a bit more patient and/or nostalgic.

just ordered it on their blog. it's pretty cheap !

These Streets Will Never Look The Same yall

this is dope as fuck. heavy too. the neil young opener is exciting!

man idk if I should wait for the vinyl w/ mp3 codes

Excellent album.

These Streets Will Never Look The Same yall

― caulk the wagon and float it, Tuesday, April 3, 2012 8:37 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes this

not sure if i "get" this album. sounds very nice, icy and inviting at the same time, provides a comfortably inhabitable atmosphere all the way through, but nothing's really grabbing me on the first pass. in enjoy the vibe more than the songwriting, and as a result, i frequently find my attention wandering. more well-crafted persona than seriously engaging personality, at least on the first pass. guess that's sort of their stock-in-trade, though...

maybe it's just the length of the thing that's making it hard to digest. have liked them primarily as a singles band in the past.

Johnny Jewel is definitely determined to get you to devote a lot of your time to his music this year

hah, for real.

he should do a 10 album set with e-40

id like to go on record saying that i think Johnny Jewel is an epic rock n roll stage name for the ages

plus a damn fine song

Will the vinyl have No Escape on it?

Okay, so I've spent a bit of time w this over the last few days. I get it even less than I did before. This is honestly one of the laziest, emptiest and least engaging albums I've heard in a long, long time. I understand that the stasis and vacuity are not just intentional but by and large "the point", but nothing is done to make the nothingness interesting or musically compelling. It's a more or less entirely blank slate against which a few obvious influences are allowed to play. The hooks are few and far between, the melodies aren't moving or memorable, the beats plod along dully without groove or propulsion, and the tones are steadfastly generic. It sounds like a drug-deadened indietronic spin on the wallpaper mood music you hear in Starbucks.

I'm not saying there aren't standout songs. "Candy" and "These Streets Will Never Look the Same" are both pretty great, working as pop without losing the creepy-cool designer zombie vibe (autotune is a much better vehicle for this kind of narcotized robot lounge music than breathy human affectlessness, imo). Unfortunately, most of the rest is oppressively boring.

also, re the neil young cover, the breathy-voiced and pindrop quiet indie cover of a pop and/or classic rock staple is such an exhausted trick at this point. at least in most cases the reinvention brings something new to the song. here it just strips away the raw and wounded defeat in favor of emotionally inert high-end furniture arrangement. i feel like i'm playing into their hands in calling it "lifeless", but that's exactly what it is, and in a bad way. like the cowboy junkies with a nondescript, careless singer and no real ear for atmospherics. do like the electronic droning and beeping at the end, but that's the only thing chromatics bring to the song.

hmm maybe start a blog about it?

wonderful suggestion, matt

did you like the last album?

i didn't love it, no, but i didn't find it anywhere near so draggy and tedious as KFL, maybe just a product of relative brevity

helps that the song "night drive" is right up front, feel like KFL makes me wait forever for something i actually want to hear.

and i don't know why "i want your love" appeals to me so much more than similar stuff on KFL, but it does. something agreeably scrapy/scrappy music that makes virtue of the dead-end vocal.

I think I'm enjoying these descriptions of why you dislike the record more than anything.

i think i really like this, maybe as much as night drive, dont get how the neil young cover is an exhausted gimmick.

I don't have a sophisticated defense of this, maybe I like the idea of "a drug-deadened indietronic spin on the wallpaper mood music you hear in Starbucks"? Although I suspect that might actually apply as a description of another artist...

I should say, I have actually have been listening to this over my morning coffee!

Don't agree that the melodies are moving or memorable in any case, at least for the first half of the album. I haven't had enough time to absorb the rest yet.

Last time I was in a Starbucks they played Paul Simon and the Decemberists and shit.
To be honest I would probably really like to sit in a nice, non-sbux coffee place while Symmetry played quietly.

Don't agree that the melodies AREN'T moving or memorable, I should say, obv.

i'm not so big on breathy-indie-covers as i was, i dunno, ten years ago, but on the neil young cover when i hear 'rock and roll is here to stay' i don't think 'indie cover', i hear them saying: this IS rock and roll, and for some reason i believe it.

i was a jerk about this. the starbucks slam was cheap, and saying that chromatics have "no ear for atmospherics" was absolute horseshit. that's the one thing they really do nail. the soundtracky instrumental pieces are some of the best tracks on here.

it's not so much that it's a bad album, but that i was struggling w it and frustrated. i've listened to kill for love a few more times now, and while i might not ever love it, i'm starting to come around. after venting, i asked myself why i was faulting this music so severely for for its "emptiness". if music music creates a generally pleasant atmosphere, why shouldn't that be enough? i had to admit that i was making an implicit demand that music w vocals and pop structures be insistently "engaging" on some level, that droning along pleasantly was cheating somehow, especially if the music seemed "stylish". once i had all that out in the open, i realized i couldn't really defend any of it.

i'm finding that kill for love is very well suited to half-distracted road listening. it's a somnambulent-romantic horror movie, and the dead-eyed vacancy helps tell the story and build the vibe. details like the dixie cup of blood are coming into focus. and the way "into the black" turns neil into "ventura highway" is starting to seem p funny & cool.