The Fork review was pretty wrong-footed, I felt, as would be any review of this album that complains that the drums are mixed as a lead instrument and that the bass carries the melodies. And: so? That's partly what makes the band so interesting. Though I suppose what he hammers as trip hop or whatever is what I heard as Too Pure. Same era, I guess. I know that writer is pretty smug about hating on anything from LA, his beat, but really, he's hating on this record for the wrong reasons. There are cases to be made both pro and con, but this doesn't quite work it out. Like, you know, landing Flood and Godrich as an implied criticism. Most bands wish, you know? I'd take this band's intriguing lack of charisma over Savages compelling redundancies any day. The latter is less boring but somehow still ... boring. But maybe I'll take the stronger con side re: Warpaint after I see them next month.
I do want to understand Cunningham's obsession, though. He's pretty selective.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 23 January 2014 13:05 (ten years ago) link
Cunningham's married to one of them, isn't he? Which explains that.
― I can still taste the Taboo in my mouth when I hear those songs (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 23 January 2014 13:10 (ten years ago) link
Also, they're good.
― I can still taste the Taboo in my mouth when I hear those songs (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 23 January 2014 13:11 (ten years ago) link
The Pitchfork review is weird but not really that weird if you know the writer; IC used to write for Stylus so I've been aware of him for years and, at Pitchfork especially, I don't trust his ears, his opinions, or his reasons. Example: he complains that neither Flood nor Godrich were able to bring out any 'dynamics' on Warpaint's songwriting (well Godrich only mixed two or three tracks so he won't have had any effect on the songwriting whatsoever), but neither Flood nor Godrich are actually known for bringing out 'dynamics' anyway; both of them to my ears bring a smooth, technological, modernist sheen to the stuff they work in.
But that's just one example of many things that don't make sense to me about that review. Likewise the Quietus review didn't make any sense to me either; neither piece feels at all as if it's about the record I've heard.
BB, fwiw, I think you'd really, really like this record. I totally hear it as a Too Pure thing too, like Josh says, or like really early Verve with the skyscraping guitar mixed out. it's not pop or rock; it's dreamy somnambulist wooze music.
― I can still taste the Taboo in my mouth when I hear those songs (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 23 January 2014 13:16 (ten years ago) link
We don't mention CCunningham marrying any Dirty Drone Girl Bassist that isn't me! We just don't, OK?
This hurts me, in my heart. So we don't discuss thissssssss! *stamps feet and wails inconsolably*
― I'd rather be the swallow than a dick (Branwell Bell), Thursday, 23 January 2014 13:23 (ten years ago) link
Sorry!
― I can still taste the Taboo in my mouth when I hear those songs (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 23 January 2014 13:26 (ten years ago) link
I'm not familiar with Too Pure at all, but I usually pull this band out alongside the Cure.
― how's life, Thursday, 23 January 2014 13:30 (ten years ago) link
BB, I'm sorry for your loss. :(
also lol at Warpaint and all their djembes or whatever.
― how's life, Thursday, 23 January 2014 13:31 (ten years ago) link
or that pitchfork review and all their ryan gosling soundtracks.
― how's life, Thursday, 23 January 2014 13:38 (ten years ago) link
It's OK. I hear Richard D James has recently divorced so I'm OK holding out for the OG. *sniff*
I do need to give this album a proper listen, because the thing is, I loved Exquisite Corpse, I really got that "mineminemine" precious feeling about it, like it was designed explicitly and only for me, it was a very intimate and immediate obsession. But I did not get the same feeling from The Fool apart from a couple of songs - maybe Majesty and Undertow, from memory? - and I don't know if I didn't give it enough of a chance to captivate me. But the two songs I've heard off the new one, immediately hit me in that sonic happy place. (Early Verve is much more likely to get me than "The Cure" because "The Cure encompasses so many things, like, if we're talking Pornography and A Forest, or if we're talking Friday I'm In Love? I think it's the guitar effects, though, they *luuuuuurve* that heavy chorus + Fender reverb guitar tone, which is one of those signifiers people always mean when they say "The Cure)
― I'd rather be the swallow than a dick (Branwell Bell), Thursday, 23 January 2014 13:43 (ten years ago) link
eagerly anticipating dog latin and imago's opinions on it exactly one year from now
― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080), Wednesday, 22 January 2014 06:00 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink have repped for Warpaint before; this album's begun brilliantly
― pessimishaim (imago), Thursday, 23 January 2014 13:49 (ten years ago) link
absolutely no comparison to the dullard Savages
― pessimishaim (imago), Thursday, 23 January 2014 13:50 (ten years ago) link
I have never fucked with the Verve before. Will take this opportunity to check them out. Probably up my alley.
― how's life, Thursday, 23 January 2014 13:53 (ten years ago) link
To be honest, I would not expect anyone with a greater understanding of the stylistic differences between various sub-genres of indie-rock than, say, Lex, to attempt a comparison between Warpaint and Savages based on their *music*. So please, let's not go there unless you really wanna discuss how much Nick McCabe sounds like East Bay Ray?
― I'd rather be the swallow than a dick (Branwell Bell), Thursday, 23 January 2014 14:07 (ten years ago) link
The comparison I got when I saw Savages live was specifically that the rhythm section is great and carries the group, while the guitar provides atmospherics. But I would never confuse the two bands. I am confused however at the amount of hype Savages earned vs. this band, which seems to be doing more interesting things with fewer rewards.
Flood nor Godrich are actually known for bringing out 'dynamics' anyway; both of them to my ears bring a smooth, technological, modernist sheen to the stuff they work in.
Actually, Flood's been one of PJ Harvey's go-tos, and on her grungier, less sheen-y albums, no less.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 23 January 2014 14:29 (ten years ago) link
i didn't get the Savages hype until i saw a video of them playing live, then i totally got it.
― festival culture (Jordan), Thursday, 23 January 2014 14:37 (ten years ago) link
TBYML is considerably more sheeny and modernist and technological, I'd argue, than Ride Of Me, which is the most dynamic and raw and dramatic, I'd say. (It's obviously still not Keane, you know, but it's a much bigger, richer, more produced sound than ROM).
― I can still taste the Taboo in my mouth when I hear those songs (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 23 January 2014 14:56 (ten years ago) link
Ride of Me. Indeed.
I thought the 'malegaze' thing was pretty clear; it was my maybe-not-totally-clever but certainly-not-meant-to-be-offensive conflation of both the way I've noticed male writers describing bands like Warpaint, Savages, etc (I'm guessing you don't need examples here) and the fact that their sound obviously touches on the, err, impressionistic aspects of shoegaze. I just find this band a complete non-event. To be fair, though, music "pretty much made from...ILM posts about wibbling dronerock circa 2001" was never, on its best day, bound to win me over.
― Jimmywine Dyspeptic, Thursday, 23 January 2014 15:03 (ten years ago) link
TBYML is considerably more sheeny and modernist and technological, I'd argue, than Ride Of Me
True! But since then Flood has been involved with Is This Desire?, White Chalk (!), A Woman and a Man Walk By and Let England Shake, most of which don't pass the modernist/sheeny/tech test. Just sayin'.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 23 January 2014 15:08 (ten years ago) link
True, true.
― I can still taste the Taboo in my mouth when I hear those songs (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 23 January 2014 15:56 (ten years ago) link
So they don't sound like a more polished Siouxsie & The Banshees anymore?
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 23 January 2014 18:34 (ten years ago) link
ok so
this is basically a masterpiece
― pessimishaim (imago), Friday, 24 January 2014 01:47 (ten years ago) link
fuck Pitchfork, fuck all the cunts who want you to write accessible indie-dance hits, make whatever music you want to, especially if it takes you down this sublime rabbit-hole
― pessimishaim (imago), Friday, 24 January 2014 01:48 (ten years ago) link
Today, I came to terms with the songs in the middle of the album that I had previously characterized as "filler", but now I get kinda hung up with with "Son". I'm saying this as a rabid Warpaint fan here.
― how's life, Friday, 24 January 2014 01:51 (ten years ago) link
kinda ridiculously the album kinda got even better after I posted that, culminating with 'Drive', which is srsly giving The Cars an impromptu streetrace for best song of that name
― pessimishaim (imago), Friday, 24 January 2014 02:02 (ten years ago) link
This album is blossoming more and more for me with every listen.
― Toni Braxton-Hicks (Turrican), Friday, 24 January 2014 02:04 (ten years ago) link
Son is a nice woozy closer, def not a highlight but the shoddy Byrds guitar at the end is sorta genius
― pessimishaim (imago), Friday, 24 January 2014 02:05 (ten years ago) link
It's astonishing how one person can have the talent to make me almost hate music I should otherwise love, by casually taking swipes at other music I also love. Can you please leave out the boring Drowned-In-Sound-isms of treating music as some kind of rival contest between righteous taste and whatever it is you're demonising this week. It is possible to love many different things.
― I'd rather be the swallow than a dick (Branwell Bell), Friday, 24 January 2014 09:33 (ten years ago) link
Cosign. It's not a fight.
― I can still taste the Taboo in my mouth when I hear those songs (Scik Mouthy), Friday, 24 January 2014 09:46 (ten years ago) link
saw them last night in brighton, they were excellent. stella the drummer is a monster.
― the "Weird Al" Yankovic of country music (stevie), Friday, 24 January 2014 10:35 (ten years ago) link
That's an Interpol song, right?
― I can still taste the Taboo in my mouth when I hear those songs (Scik Mouthy), Friday, 24 January 2014 11:43 (ten years ago) link
Stella Is A Monster And She Is Always Drums (pompously)
― I'd rather be the swallow than a dick (Branwell Bell), Friday, 24 January 2014 11:45 (ten years ago) link
(Warpaint's drums are actually the opposite of pompous; I just can't stop saying that.)
― I'd rather be the swallow than a dick (Branwell Bell), Friday, 24 January 2014 11:46 (ten years ago) link
yr totally projecting there - what swipes do I take, other than saying that the band doesn't have to adhere to blogosphere type?
― pessimishaim (imago), Friday, 24 January 2014 14:20 (ten years ago) link
Pitchfork isn't a band, you know (thank fuck)
― pessimishaim (imago), Friday, 24 January 2014 14:21 (ten years ago) link
I happen to like "indie-accessible dance hits" and your tedious grumbling against them was played out already 3000 posts ago on the EOY tracks list. When you put that music in opposition to e.g. Warpaint in your nasty little imagined feuds you do neither yourself nor the music you are supposedly advocating any favours.
― I'd rather be the swallow than a dick (Branwell Bell), Friday, 24 January 2014 14:26 (ten years ago) link
In fairness, the attempt at an accessible indie-dance song is by some margin the worst thing here.
― Matt DC, Friday, 24 January 2014 14:27 (ten years ago) link
I listened to this at low volume while reading the other night and it really worked for me as ambient, to the extent I got annoyed when Disco/very broke the spell. Whether it'll reward repeated/closer listens I don't know, although I still don't like the singer's voice when she hits high notes.
― Matt DC, Friday, 24 January 2014 14:30 (ten years ago) link
I'm not saying indie-accessible dance is per se a bad thing, just that Warpaint don't have to make it, and that their talents clearly lie more sublimely with a comparatively contemplative, atmospheric, surreal music
― pessimishaim (imago), Friday, 24 January 2014 14:36 (ten years ago) link
Even those sympathetic to what Warpaint are doing have all but admitted this album lacks hooks, grooves, or even a pulse most of the time
direct quote from Pitchfork - just saying, there's an enemy to fight
― pessimishaim (imago), Friday, 24 January 2014 14:37 (ten years ago) link
This is inane, no one wants them to make indie-dance and no one has ever claimed to. Even the Pitchfork review isn't saying that. Another pointless false-opposition.
― Matt DC, Friday, 24 January 2014 14:38 (ten years ago) link
Now why on earth would I get the idea that saying "fuck X" was implying something negative about X? I mean, really. Fuck imago, then, I guess.
― I'd rather be the swallow than a dick (Branwell Bell), Friday, 24 January 2014 14:39 (ten years ago) link
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the warpaint room!
― how's life, Friday, 24 January 2014 14:41 (ten years ago) link
hooks, grooves, or even a pulse most of the time
^indie-dance, by my reckoning.
I said 'fuck those who', not 'fuck indie dance', different clauses yo. Also, by God let me restrain this hand from typing further
(except a li'l lol @ how's life)
― pessimishaim (imago), Friday, 24 January 2014 14:43 (ten years ago) link
to chill you all out here is a shit photo i took last night.http://distilleryimage8.s3.amazonaws.com/b091257284c611e39d6d127553f729f8_7.jpgannoying person behind me last night was all "I don't like the new album and ooh this is the first time I've seen them not play in a diamond formation" which again proves you never eavesdrop anything worth hearing at a gig.
― the "Weird Al" Yankovic of country music (stevie), Friday, 24 January 2014 14:48 (ten years ago) link
their vocals were really, really fantastic last night, too. I'm impressed how they can recreate the vibe and timbre of a geodesic dome in Joshua Tree to venues of all shapes and sizes.
― the "Weird Al" Yankovic of country music (stevie), Friday, 24 January 2014 14:49 (ten years ago) link
Yeah because those three elements are only ever present in indie-dance...
― Matt DC, Friday, 24 January 2014 14:56 (ten years ago) link
Also, by God let me restrain this hand from typing further
yes God, please restrain that hand
― SHAUN (DJP), Friday, 24 January 2014 14:59 (ten years ago) link