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(It's Tunesday, by the way, so you too should go write something short about a record.)
Okay, I've listened to Nanobots a few times and I--
(MID-SENTENCE DISSOLVE TO FLASHBACK:
END FLASHBACK.)
Anyway, I'm into Nanobots, and I think it's managing to call back to their old stuff without imitating it. The return of the twelve-second songs is kind of an obvious Apollo 18 reference, okay, that one's easy. And the return of decapitation/grievous head injury as a major theme. But more generally, it seems like they've gotten comfortable again with letting the weird song ideas be what they want to be instead of trying to make them all into actual songs. Just following it all down the hole. There are still ultra-poppy nuggets in here ("Circular Karate Chop," "Stone Cold Coup d'Etat") that may or may not wear out soon, but then again there always have been. The other tracks combine their old itchy weirdness with a new lazy effortless confidence that was definitely not there on Join Us. Throwing out cool harmonies and arrangements without making it any kind of big Thing, letting the shape of the thing be the Thing instead.
Call me back in a year, but I think it's a keeper.
Okay, I've listened to Nanobots a few times and I--
(MID-SENTENCE DISSOLVE TO FLASHBACK:
- Calibration pattern: The Else is totally their second-best album of all time, behind only the sublime John Henry and trailed by Flood. (It also push-started my "Enemy Producer" theory, but that's a post for another day.)
- But even though I won't call it "favorite," their early stuff is some big-time lightning in a jar, never equalled.
- I never quite warmed up to Join Us; it seemed incomplete and... I dunno, like it was a research album forced into regular-album shape. "Judy is Your Vietnam" is legit wonderful, the minute-and-a-half song that reminds us what you're supposed to do when you only have a minute and a half worth of song. (Have I mentioned here that I want a 45-second remix of "Call Me Maybe?" Anyway.) "You Probably Get That a Lot" is also wonderful; "Can't Keep Johnny Down" is way catchy in that The Spine period way, where it gets real old quick but burns wicked hot while it still has fuel. "The Lady and the Tiger" is still intriguing, even though it doesn't quite gel. Those are the only four tracks I got feelings about; the rest just really didn't do it for me. Their odds-and-ends album from the same year was a better listen, I think.
END FLASHBACK.)
Anyway, I'm into Nanobots, and I think it's managing to call back to their old stuff without imitating it. The return of the twelve-second songs is kind of an obvious Apollo 18 reference, okay, that one's easy. And the return of decapitation/grievous head injury as a major theme. But more generally, it seems like they've gotten comfortable again with letting the weird song ideas be what they want to be instead of trying to make them all into actual songs. Just following it all down the hole. There are still ultra-poppy nuggets in here ("Circular Karate Chop," "Stone Cold Coup d'Etat") that may or may not wear out soon, but then again there always have been. The other tracks combine their old itchy weirdness with a new lazy effortless confidence that was definitely not there on Join Us. Throwing out cool harmonies and arrangements without making it any kind of big Thing, letting the shape of the thing be the Thing instead.
Call me back in a year, but I think it's a keeper.
