Big Orange Crayonmusical thingsI See Spots Cantilevered Heart Arlingtone Records This is a really great winter album. The production on it is kinda spooky and echo-ey, and the soft vocals fit in perfectly with sitting in a dorm room while a few snow flakes fall outside while reading a book. Most of the songs have a dreamy quality that makes it entirely possible to listen to this album on loop for hours and not get irritated with it. I guess it kind of strikes me in the same way as Kincaid., but with more of an emphasis on somewhat folkey pop than bouncier stuff. So I really love this album to death. Probably my favorite songs on the album are "Wal-Mart", which has some fairly bizarre lyrics that I love listening to, "Floater" in which the vocals kind of drift dreamily over soft, poppy layers of sound, "Iditarod", which is the most Kincaid.-like song, and "Smoking in the Dark" which is another really nice folkey pop song. So, even though the band says that they named that album Cantilevered Heart because such a thing would be "an ugly mess", I pretty much completely think otherwise. This is one of those beautiful albums that makes you want to either lie in bed under a pile of blankets or walk through big piles of leaves; you know, that sort of warm nostalgic sensation that makes you feel inexplicably happy despite what your current situation might be. I guess the album gives me the sort of feeling that I would get from a band that came out as the result of Kincaid., Belle and Sebatian, and the Secret Stars being mixed together in a big blender, only without the gory part. Total score: 834 out of 834 |