Customer Reviews

High Society

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

much more structured and concise than enon's preceeding album, believo! a bit poppier and more accessible. plenty of clever lyrics, short songs, interesting blips and filters (from the brainiac days), and quite a bit of overall variety. really good stuff. i cannot get some of the songs like "natural disasters" out of my head.

Well there's not much else to say about this album. It's easily one of the best albums I've heard in the past few years. If you're just somebody who likes generic music like Nickelback, Korn, and the like well this is not your game. If you want to hear a band that manages to create catchy well constructed pop songs that are on the verge of genius then this is the album for you. There's many songs on this album that could easily be huge hits, but are too intelligent for the mass consumption of the music industry today. This is by far one of the rare gems in music that you'll not regret. The people that gave this bad reviews obviously are lame and know nothing about music. Check out everything John Schmersal has done, nothing has let me down so far.

Good solid creative rock. Inventive arrangements. Up to date. Intelligent influences. The comparisons to Beck are somewhat correct, it's kind of a more experimental and hard counterpoint to his music. Beck fans might like this. Can't call this brilliant though because it's not trail blazing.

Guys like this can end up really great or fizzle out.

This is one of my favorite albums, and remains my favorite Enon album. The variety of songs all work together to create a cohesive, catchy set of tunes. And isn't that what matters?

Enon released the stunning BELIEVO! to little fanfare. Its legend grew slowly, mostly by word of mouth. The revolutionary BELIEVO! was followed by membership shape-shifting, a label switch, and the band's sophomore effort (at issue for purposes of this review). HIGH SOCIETY trumps BELIEVO, which is some measure of an accomplishment. The album is solid from start to finish, and your favorite tracks will change from day to day, and listen to listen.

The album is perfectly organized in terms of track layout, flow, and structure. "Old Dominion" is an unforgettably perfect album opener . . . an aggressive and anthemic call to arms. "Count Sheep" recalls the electro-weirdness of BELIEVO!, but surprises with melodic twists and turns that bely its creepiness. "Window Display" is worthy of hate for its degree of catchiness. The highlight track "Leave It To Rust" is a phenomenal and perfect pop song with a twist. The ultra-hip "Carbonation" sounds like MIDNIGHT VULTURES-era Beck under determined assault by ELECTRO-SHOCK FOR PRESIDENT-era Braniac. The title track is a memorable and well-placed electronified Beatlesesque ditty.

When Enon uses Toko Yasuda's voice as a wonderful complementary change-up to John Schmersel's varied and neurotic delivery, what they get is an album that is pretty much perfect in its own context. Think DOOLITTLE, DAYDREAM NATION, SLANTED AND ENCHANTED, etc. The album is pretty much as good as it could be, and there is nothing that anyone could reasonably suggest changing about it that would make it any better. It's rare to find an album like this one in the mess that is the contemporary indie music landscape, so buy this one without regret. You will be duly rewarded.

man, Enon is terrible. Seriously

Such style packed into an album it's almost sick. Enon flirts with different styles and pulls them all off. With all the sound-alike "alternative" bands out there in HEAVY rotation on whatever Clearchannel controlled station is on in your area, I'm stupified (but never surprised) that here is another original record that most people will never hear... Deprivation. If you want to pick up something that rocks with intelligent, excellent songcraft, you'd be well served to pick up this album.

This is my first encounter with Enon, and hopefully, it won't be my last.
"High Society" blends influences from bands like Television and Devo, and add's electronic blips and bleeps with male and female vocals.
The songs are tight and very well composed, thanks to John. Toko's vocals are both sexy and innocent and add a lot to this band. Songs like "In This City," "Disposable Parts," and "Shoulder" show her voice off nicely.
It's hard to describe Enon's style. Are they a garagey new wave inspired punk band? You decide.

2 1/2

Overly rambunctious pop experimenters continued to pursue worthy goals through dedicated, and singular explorations, though this time around the songwriting feels mediocre at best. Most often the jagged combination of spazzy electronics and warped pop songwriting do not add up to anything worthwhile. Only a few noticeable tracks, perhaps only one true standout (Natural Disasters), High Society is too preoccupied with it's drugged out catchiness to match their better releases of drugged out catchiness with greater composition.

the first time i ever heard of enon, i was visiting my brother in Grinnell where he goes to school. Grinnell is an amazing private school that books a lot of amazing bands that all put on free shows. i didn't know what to expect, but when they started their set with disposable parts, i was hooked. since that show, i've gotten all their albums excepts believo and they have risen to be one of my favorite bands. then this last summer i saw them live once again in omaha in the sokal underground. i was up in the very front and they put on one of the best live shows i've ever seen. High Society is my favorite album of theirs. Old Dominion, the first track, shows how utterly hardcore they are. my neck still hurts from rocking out to that song live. and the wonderfully dancy disposable parts shows their electronic side. with the rest of the album, you can find a variety of songs somewhere in the middle. but the bottom line is that they are all amazing. take my word for it, if you want to buy an enon album, start with this one. most of the songs that they play live are off High Society anyway.