Big Orange Crayonmusical thingsKoester Oh! Turpentine Pitch-a-Tent Records This is sparse. Koester, despite being a four piece band, depsite having a ton of guest musicians, sound totally stripped down and barren, in a sort of lo-fi indie rock kind of way. It's very cool. For some reason, it gives me the same effect as a phone call from a stranger on a payphone telling you all his secrets out of despiration. Or something. The whole album has a very intimate feel to it, at least. Don't take "stripped down" as meaning that there isn't any melody to the songs though, that's just the atmosphere of the album. The lack of gloss sort of makes the hooks and melodies seem even more apparent, in this case. Usually with records like this, I'll throw them into the standart alt-rock category for the moment, there is very little to hang on to through the fuzz and cracking voices, but there are some wonderful songs here, especially "sweek liquor finale" which I've had stuck in my head through several physics classes, and "seven mile affair", which brings Dinosaur Jr. to mind (for me anyway). One song that particularly strikes me is "Out to Pasture" which is unbelievably barren, with just a twinkling, hollow sounding piano and soft singing until the very end where it's accompanied by a thundering drum that hits once a measure and a bit of whistling. Cool. If I were forced to complain about anything, I'd say that sometimes is seems like he's really streching for a rhyme, but that doesn't really bother me; it kind of adds to the bare, raw feeling of the whole album. So if you dig this kind of thing, go nuts. Total score: 581 out of 594 |