Customer Reviews

Radar Bros

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Radar Bros are capable of creating some of the most beautiful, relaxing music I've ever heard, and the lazy tempos are never more apparent than on their debut self-titled LP.

The first track "Lose Your Face Again" is a wonderful track, but it can be difficult to listen to because it is the absolutely slowest song I have ever heard. (I would imagine sloths would get impatient listening to it.)

The album continues with several tracks that give a mood unlike any I've heard on a record before. With each listen, I hear a mix of sadness, acceptance, laziness, and relaxation all wrapped up into one. These aren't the only moods I feel, however, the other ones haven't the name to describe them.

Highlights of the album include Wise Mistake of You, the sad "Stay", and Underwater Culprits. The final track "Goddess", though, is not only by far the best track on the album, but remains my favorite Radar Bros song over all. It is also the perfect endcap to a great CD.

If you are in the mood for slow, soothing melodies, the Radar Bros are a good band to turn to. Fans of the Singing Hatchet and And the Sorrounding Mountains will enjoy this album if they are willing to listen to the band play even slower than they do now.

there is a quiet containment in the whole flow of the radar bros debut release. guitar chords roll along rhymically like gentle waves, their beautiful simplicity and spareness shaping the songs into jewels. within is a distilled quality, as if gravity is pulling the music into its overall form and all unnecessary elements are filtered out in the downward pull. an exquisite record. a fantastic group of tasteful musicians.

While the Radar Bros. always save room for excursions into subdued theatrical art-rock, they seem most at ease with the simple, sublime melodies that keep their music from drifting into space. While "The Singing Hatchet" is their tightest production to date, this album is their most effective mood piece. Their primary tone is not one of depression so much as distant longing and quietly regretful resignation, as in the repeated line from "Underwater Culprit": "you can leave the show at any time." Not to say that this album is without range. The melodic variety in the first half (sampled above) is balanced out by more subtle stokes in the second half. The complex Southern California micro-epic "Stay" sits comfortably alongside the simple, haunting harmony of "Supermarket Pharmacy," in which a poignant pastiche of morbid images offer a rare moment of lyrical clarity.

But the Radar Bros. are, fortunately, not preoccupied with clarity. Although driven by the same pop aesthetic that propelled Pink Floyd before they were officially fried beyond recognition, this music is meant to drift into your consciousness, rather than immerse it. If Jim Putnam started singing about his need for psychotherapy, the album would lose its greatest attribute: it's comfort music. For a bleak, airy sunny afternoon or a long, rainy night, "Radar Bros." takes little time to grow on you and, after a while, feels like home.

Possibly the most boring CD in my very extensive collection!

If you like acetone, beta band and that sort of countrified-pastoralesque-brian wilson's kind a thing, you'll love this. buy it!

The Radar Brothers - This is the first and only album I've heard by them. An extremely mellow band with lyrics that don't provoke any strong feelings - just disconnected images - the best example I can think of for this is in Supermarket Pharmacy...but I can't remember the lyrics. Anyways, they are a pretty good band. I kind of want to say they area a mix between Nick Drake and Semisonic. Although the poetry isn't nearly as good as Nick Drake's (no one's can be) its main focus is the soothing vocals and the lyrics, while they aren't as upbeat as Semisonic, but they have a similar voice, and they are from the 90's.