Customer Reviews

New Romance

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

First thing first, this blows 99% of whats being called punk straight out of the water. That said, it's no "Good Health" either. I was hooked on that album within the first five seconds. When I first bought this, I was more than ready to write a two star review for an album that deserves so much more. A few days later I decided I should raise it to a three. Now that I'm finally getting around to this, its about 4 and a half stars. This album's production is a little to clean for my personal taste (just about half a step left of Mark Trombino) which is very dissapointing from the man that produced more than one of my top ten albums of all time. It does not burn out of the gates the way Good Health does. However, by the third listen, I began to look past all of this to the actual songs which are at least as good as the last album and the clean sound has to be as much about tighter playing as it does of anal production. The playiong on "All Medicated Genuises" is worth the price of the disc alone. So am I happy that one of my favorite bands focused all their chaotic engery into this slick little album? I guess so. Another good health wouldv'e been a waste of my time anyway. Chances are if I waited another week I probably would have given this 5 stars.

"New Romance" is a pretty impressive expansion over PGMG debut cd. The trademark ripping guitar edges and impassioned vocal delivery are still there, but along with it, is quite a lot of other details. Pretty much every song on the album has some sort of other sound whether it's piano, synth, drum machine etc.. but it's not simply tacked on top but actually woven into the song structure. Along with additional instrumentation there's a lot more space on this album and the songs breathe more than on the first. It's as if they still kept listening to Fugazi but someone had slipped a few Can albums into the tourbus over the past year. The songs are incredibly developed and instruments bounce in and out yet somehow the energy manages to stay strong consistantly - as if they figured only which parts were absolutely necessary for each section of a song and kept only those. A damn impressive feat considering how much the band has been touring lately and couldn't have had that much downtime to spend on producing an incredibly, played, recorded and thought-out album.

Pretty girls make graves are an impressive band. They sounded nothing like i imagined after reading about them. They are not punk. This album is not agressive. There are some driving beats and some awesome guitar work but its all used sparingly, in a low-key kinda way.

This album is a beatuful work and has been glued to my stereo since i got it. The vocals are excellent and move from eerie-soft spoken vocals to half shouted post-hardcore outbursts. The bass is excellent and high up in the mix, which is nice. The guitars are used sparingly and do not overshadow the other instruments. Imagine the Red Hot chilli's style of guitar. But more rock. The drum beats are excellent and always interesting. The keyboards are great. I hate keyboards but they fit this album perfectly.

What do they sound like? Its hard to describe. Download a song and hear for yourself. Soulfull female vocals, driving basslines, pounding yet fresh drums, eerie keyboards and squealing/rocking guitars. Every track is different and intersting. This is the freshest music i have heard in a long time.

For fans of , post-harcore , rock , emo (even tho it mostly sux), electronic-rock, and anything with a bit of soul.

Well I bought it last year but it is still the album I have found most inspiring. Pretty Girls Make Graves go where no band has gone before and they do it with style. Unlike some other angsty indie rock, it is still listenable! Forgive me if I'm not hardcore enough but I like a bit of dynamics in music and PGMG have refined this since Good Health, they are not afraid to have a quiet moment now and then ...right before they shatter your eardrums again!

I really like the interplay between the instruments, how the bass, drums and guitar all contribute without playing over what others are doing too much. Sometimes bands attempt to be too "busy" with this type of music, but PGMG get the balance just right. Andrea Zollo is a fantastic singer, you should buy this album and have a listen to her rather than listen to some of the sexist comments. Standout tracks for me are All Medicated Geniuses, Chemical Chemical and The New Romance.

Can't wait to hear what their new album sounds like!

There is nothing really innovative about this album, and that's actually a high compliment. A refreshingly unpretentious, nonexperimental album that is remarkably enjoyable and consistent. The riffs are strong and catchy, the lyrics are solid and the vocals edgy. The music is somewhere between punk, emo, and garage rock. A great listen when you want some kick-ass straightahead rock and roll.

"The New Romance" will catch you offguard at first, but give it a couple of tries. If you're anything like me, you'll find it severely catchy and almost painfully addictive. The music's post-punk, yes, but poppier than say, Rainer Maria or Sleter-Kinney. Don't be taken aback, it works really well paired with Andrea Zollo's airy, minimalist vocals. The title track is sheer bliss, but the two gems here are the action-packed "Chemical, Chemical" and "This is Our Emergency", a lilting, poppier track. This album is so cool it doesn't really care if you dismiss it or not. Smart listeners will pick up on that.

good album - towards the top of the list of 80's post punk revival. Nothing really stands out for me, but the album - as a whole - is pretty well-rounded.

And to that guy that was attributing their name to the band DADA...um...maybe...but I doubt. Especially since The Smiths released the song Pretty girls make graves on their self-titled album in 1984.

OR...perhaps they took their name from the source that The Smiths took their song title from. Jack Kerouac. The Dharma Bums.

Now tha tI have that cleared up. This is a good album, not great, but definitely better than a lot out there.

This album would have been killed had these guys jumped to a major label. The extra orchestration would probably have caused some Neanderthal at Universal or Geffen call for a cleaner, more produced, sound. However, coming from Seattle I figured Pretty Girls Make Graves would take more of a Steve Albini approach despite the recent broadening of their horizons. While they did switch labels (from Lookout to Matador) they haven't lost one ounce of the visceral appeal from their first album (which was only eight songs delivered in under a half an hour).

The arrangements are more complex, and there are more instruments, but they still manage to pump up the adrenaline. This is one of those albums where almost every emotion you experience in a lifetime is represented at one point musically, or it at least tricks you into thinking so. The final song, "A Certain Cemetery" seems to cram all those possible feelings into a five-minute song. Pretty Girls add more to their music than just an extra instrument here and there, they play around with song structure enough that if they would have waited to drop the piano on a later album they would still have had more than enough new sounds to please their old fans.

Perhaps the biggest leap forward is how lead singer, Andrea Zollo, has carved out space for her voice. The rest of the band allows Zollo to take the forefront, nudging their guitars up against her vocals. Things are sparser, but still maintain a tight feel. Pretty Girls Make Graves have created an album that pushes them beyond the post-hardcore trappings they seemed destined to live out, and at this point they can do anything with their sound.

PGMG is one of my most favorite bands, and I new that, as soon as I heard "Good Health". And since I loved "Good Health" I thought the new, at the time, PGMG record couldn't be as fantastic as the last. But I bought "The New Romance" the day it came out and was completely taken away with how beautiful it was. "The New Romance" is not as cut throat or top of the lung as PGMG records before. But where those records are filled with the words of betrayal, giving up, or kicking down doors "The New Romance" is filled with passionate words and vocals that could signify the most gut pulling love letter. This record speaks volumes about love that no other artists could ever comprehend. But it doesn't become the redundant mindless ranting of records that are only about love, PGMG can convey those messages and also messages of that sinking feeling, loneliness, and perseverance. All I really want to say is this record is one of the best I have ever heard and it really has a well deserved place in my heart... It is really a record you should listen to under the stars.

this is a lushly, powerfully beautiful album, quite similar in fact to the kerouac novel the name derives from. a melodic, hauntingly, powerfully post-emo post-hardcore part-electronicpunk somethingorother...words and genre labels fail here. this is good stuff.