1 keeper
keeper avg .083
The energetic lead-off track "Southern Point"**** combines Crosby Stills Nash's or America's complex but folk-y tonalities with pounding drums, usually propelled at breakneck speed by Daniel Rossen's acoustic guitar riffs. "Two Weeks" is no less energetic, but played at an exuberant march. Apparently its quirky oh-oh-oh's seemed perfect for selling some hipster-y consumer products; it was featured in a plethora of TV shows and commercials. The rest of the album is a pretty low-key affair and apart from the rapidly thrumming "Ready, Able" and arpeggiated "About Face" none of the other songs ever exceeds low-mid tempo. While there is drama, usually in form of lots of cymbal crashes as in "Fine For Now," "While You Wait For The Others," and "I Live With You," and both Ed Droste and Daniel Rossen are skilled vocalists, the most of the memorable parts of the album are splashes or hoots of delayed or processed guitar, letting the few songs that coalesce into something I would call conventionally accessible, like "Cheerleader" and the pretty album closer "Foreground," fade into oblivion. Some sophisticated melodies, guitar gimmicks, or orchestral flourishes don't make an album Pet Sounds. Great writing does. I don't care what all the reviewers say; as it usually eschews flow or groove, Veckatimest is not nearly the equal to its more accessible follow-up, Shields (2012).
Comments