Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Delicate Pop!, December 19, 2001
As a "crusty old goth" with a penchant for emo-core and all things swirly and mopey (including delta and chicago blues, incidentally), my review should be read with a certain suspcion toward my aesthetic credentials. Even so, other reviews on this page are really misguided in even the most partially negative assessment. This sophomore effort finds Pinback have found the perfect way to settle into the odd pop chair, finding their sweetspot: delicate melodies punctuating with a twingly (is that a word?) percussive baseline, sweet male voices that oscillate between quirk and caresses. The stand-out song here is "Penelope," which, is simply a miraculous in its ability to commuicate a sense of "caring" (in the sense of "holding out," or taking that paternal risk); with headphones flying from Salem OR to Minneapolis after a long and stressful visit looking for work, deeper listening brought me to tears. Of course, we invest all sorts of personal things into music that are not "in the music." But we all tend to gravitate to music that is investible, and this band produces some excellent stuff for mending memories and making moments. If you enjoy emo-core--from Neutral Milk Hotel to Trembling Blue Stars, the Sea and the Cake, and similar ilk--this is a must have. Blue screen life will be hard for this band to top. It is mature and visonary pop, worthy of its cute song titles in a non-commercializable way (someone keep VW away from this!). Good and solid stuff
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
straddling the line between true art and pop, November 8, 2002
I was very hesitant to purchase this cd. i had only heard maybe two songs on the local independent station and it had been a long time since, but what i heard had resonated so clearly with me that for the next 5 months every time i was in a record store i picked up this album looked it over, counting the track numbers trying to decide if it was worth the [$$$] price tag. i couldn't remember, and listening to song samples on-line didn't help much. finally i bought it. it has been a few months and i now own a signed copy of a tour ep, two shirts, their first full length and i'm purchasing the "some voices" ep today. when i got in my car i immediately tore the obnoxious plastic wrap and that rediculously sticky bar code label off the cd and popped it in. the guitars in the first song, "offline pk," start out like a hail storm on a tin roof. then when the vocals come in i immediately noticed their incredible tone despite the way they seem to try to sneak the words in between the guitars as if they're trying not to disturb the interplay. so i assumed it was going to be a joan of arc-ish, artsy album. but in each line a little more guitar and a little more vocals are added to complete the picture of the chorus. before you know it you're there and the pieces have come together so well that even upon first listen you realize you've stumbled upon something incredible. the rest of the album follows a similar pattern although concrete seconds and penelope are so right on the money that you feel like jello and can't help to sing along..."and everything i say to you is gonna come out wrong anyway." -so true, so true. prog has emerged as my current favorite but that has changed so many times that i can't really say one is better than another. it's like a completely different language is being spoken in each. i cringed when i first heard the funkadelic bass line thinking it was going to be a stinker. but i forgot what i had learned. they are artists at peeling away what doesn't work guiding you down a path to what does, and what does tickles something in you that not much else ever has. the overall feeling of the album is both dynamic yet soothing. i can't remember the last time a band could make me feel both ways at once. the only thing i can compare them to is american analog set as i haven't heard much of armistead's or rob's other stuff. but they have so many more layers than american anolog set. where american analog set excel at minimalism pinback excel in every direction. seville and tres are the most underappreciated songs on the album. when seville starts out i can't help but to picture the white lane lines on a freeway ticking by to the beat. there's something cold and lonely about it. but then the guitars start charming in like an approaching rainstorm and they sync up with the bass line right before the drum beats decide the soothing rhythm. some songs start with many layers that are peeled away to reveal a few amazing melodies and harmonies yet other's add layer upon layer never taking away from the one prior. what makes this work are the incredible vocals that frame the instruments perfectly and tie it all together. this album is a paradox but it's not. as with many of the lyrics, at times things don't make sense but when it's all over you feel as if somehow it did. it's hard to describe why i love this album, all i know is that i can't get enough of it and it was definitely worth the price. i've bought plenty of cd's since, yet this is still the one that remains the warmest. it may take a week, but this album will remove the crust from your eyes to show you what good indie-pop should be.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
YOU ARE THE ENEMY..., October 1, 2005
Pinback BLOWS me away. I consider my taste in music to be very diverse, with a tendency to love obscure indie rock-pop, from the last three decades (talk talk, split enz to elliot smith and death cab). Pinback delivers some of the best, most consistent music I've heard in YEARS. I started with Summer in Abaddon and was weak in the knees, then I acquired their debut album and could barely stand...and now, Blue Screen Life has about knocked the breath right out of me. I haven't gotten through the entire back catalog because I can't stop listening to the three albums I have in my hands. Words cannot express how fascinating this band is - intricate & complicated with a simple, straightforward delivery. Their transitions are SICK. They put their contemporaries (death cab, the shins, the killers) to SHAME. I love all of the aforementioned bands, but Pinback slaughters them in delivering well conceived, perfectly executed, diversified albums that you can listen to from front to back, over & over. How many albums can you say that about? They are heavenly. The standouts are XIY, Boo, Concrete Seconds, Bbtone, Prog, Pene... oh, screw it - every song is GREAT!
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