3.0 out of 5 stars
is it over (too soon)?, July 24, 2009
This review is from: All That to the Wall (Audio CD)
While some of the shambolic glory of the Youth City Fire E.P. and the prior album, Such Triumph, has been sanded off, this has allowed a lot of The Narrator's ideas to come to the fore in a way that was only hinted at before. "All That To The Wall" is a little more polished, and that's generally a bad thing. But the clarity is also, oddly, a plus as well.
It's almost as if I'm listening to a different band than the one that made Such Triumph. The ideas are more fleshed out, the delivery is more constant and steady, and a little bit of the headlong mess that made the previous releases so amazing has been cleaned up. The guitars are a bit more chime-y this time out. What this sonic tidying process has revealed is what was always suspected: The Narrator are an accomplished and unique band more than capable of riveting songwriting and stunning instrumental twists and turns. They benefited from some of their rough edges, and while All That To The Wall discards some of that charming, slackardly aesthetic, it uncovers the amazing band that always existed underneath.
These are fully-formed songs, and I can enjoy them on an equal plane with the more unpredictable earlier recordings. I understand they lost their drummer early on in the recording of this CD. No doubt that necessitated some of the changes in their sonic palette. I look forward to future projects from these musicians.
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