Our Opinion… not that anyone really asked for it.
For the week of 9/24/2007

DEER TICK – WAR ELEPHANT (Feow Records)
I found myself becoming increasingly hostile while listening to this album. Folk dude sings the blues, yeah yeah. Some time around having heard the same song for the 9th time, my suspicion was confirmed. I was being conned. My mind turned to thoughts of revenge. How could I waste 45 minutes of this guy’s life just as he had done mine? Perhaps, I could become his “friend” and one day give him bad directions? Or, better yet, design an elaborate hoax-map that would cause him to drive the same path 14 times without going anywhere. Take that, Deertick. Maybe next time you won’t flaunt your repetition so unscrupulously. Or, you’ll learn a lesson: Folk music doesn’t have to be this boring. – Motown
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TOMAHAWK – ANONYMOUS (Ipecac)
We will spare you, mon petite porcs, the sad story of our several thwarted attempts to have Michael Patton knighted by the crowned heads of Europe, but know this: no other vocalist in modern “rock and roll” has the bracing combination of ambition, talent and je ne sais qua to adequately perform the sublime musics of apocryphal American savages. ‘Twas inevitable, to our educated eyes, that Tomahawk would someday make a concept album, but using the all-but-forgotten songs of nameless American tribes-people as the basis for such has produced an intriguing and delightful shock. Herein can be found a wide variety of tones: the ominous (“War Song”), the rollicking (“Mescal Rite 1”), the transcendent (“Omaha Dance”) and the traditional (“Crow Dance”), each lushly updated with the brooding guitar-work of Duane Denison and stomping percussion of John Stanier. We tapped our feet, we bobbed our head, we cried out in ecstatic transport – in point of fact, we listened to nothing but this recording and the aggrieved bellyaching of our manservant for days on end. Should you fancy yourself, mi estupidito, a person of un-conventional taste and advanced intellect, purchase copies of Anonymous for distribution to your discriminating friends & party guests, and prepare for outpourings of awe and gratitude. – El Marquis de Nada
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CITAY – LITTLE KINGDOM (Dead Ocean)

A few years back I played this gig in Johnson City, TN with this band called Tribus. They were this awful heavy metal band who you could tell drank a lot of Jack and banged all the cheerleaders in high school, but now are all working at the local liquor store and married one of those same cheerleaders (who’s now probably strung out on coke). Citay is basically Tribus, but with a lot of weed and acid instead (or in addition – it doesn’t really matter).
Little Kingdom is basically the audio equivalent of Napoleon Dynamite. It starts okay and you know that it has potential, so you give it a chance – you sit and listen throughout, waiting for it to go somewhere and get rgood. But it NEVER FUCKING HAPPENS. Then, for some morbid reason, you decide to listen again, thinking that maybe there was something you missed, only the find out that it’s just as bad as it was before, if not worse. Then you have to face the fact that not only did you subject yourself to this crap, you were nice and did it again. – Sparta Praha
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AKRON/FAMILY – LOVE IS SIMPLE (Young God)

Hipsters hate hippies. They also hate jam bands. But remember that “dude” in college who only listened to the really good Pink Floyd and Grateful Dead records. The one that taught everyone to like free jazz, had the best parties and was always really happy to see you? Well, Love is SImple is that guy. Akron/Family wants you to love love love everyone – along with that album title, there are two versions of the song “Love, Love, Love” – and honestly, what’s wrong with that? You can never be to hip for a little fun and friendliness. – Jonathan Lee Riches
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FIERY FURNACES – WIDOW CITY (Thrill Jockey)
I wish Eleaner and Matthew Friedberger were my brother and sister. The duo, also known as The Fiery Furnaces, has produced a series of albums over the last few years that have the kind of amazing, insane lyrics that make me feel like I am dropping acid, or at least being groped by someone that does. Like everybody else, they live in Brooklyn, but their Chicago roots manage to shine through adding a nice, gritty feel. There new album, Widow City may be my favorite one today. True, I never have any idea what they are singing about, but it’s so much easier than letting my drug-addled downstairs neighbor put his hand up my shirt. So when October 9th comes around, you may want to pick this album up, the title track alone makes it worth it. – Sugar Tits
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