Customer Reviews

Strange We Should Meet Here (Mcup)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I first heard any of the songs off of this albulm, it was live at the Taste of Chaos tour. Me and several of my counterparts we're left jaws dropped and expecting to need a new pair of pants.

It's easy to enjoy a band live when you know the songs, but very little do you find a musical group that can blow your mind at first chance live. Especially when they only can play 5 songs and are part of alimited acoustic set used to provide transitions between the bigger bands. As me and my friends agree, they we're by far the best act of the night and to our everlasting shame we never got a shirt.

Luckily the band stated their name proudly...."Idiot Pilot" and that until their albulm release in May you could find their songs on their website. Of course the very next morning it was the immediate impulse to listen to every single last one of these songs. At first one looks for the songs he/she recognizes from the concert, then moves on to the even less familiar songs. You love the ones you heard before and are intrigued by the ones you haven't. The boldness of the albulm is cultivating. Songs like 'The Violent Tango' with the raw screaming and often....un-conventional-music like sounds are interesting. And at first one is set off by the boldness....but it is this extreme displacement of sound that makes this band so amazing. The music is melodic yet powerful. Streamlined by techno-ish keyboards and soaring vocals, and made raw and gritty by guitar and throat ripping screams. Interestingly enough it's not poorly thrown together. 'Spark Plug' is one of the most intense songs I've ever heard, yet it still has melodic factors. 'To buy a gun' is now a favorite among those I am associated with. 'A day in the life of a poolshark' is catchy as hell, but it has enough quality that you don't mind when it gets stuck in your head for hours at a time.

To say the least, this albulm is sheer genius on both sides of the creative mind-pool. A team truly destined for the musci industry. And their homemade music videos only boost the incredibility of the albulm.

I recommend this albulm to an open-minded and patient audience who will carefully listen to the songs and not just pass it up at first glance. For within lies talent found by few other mainstream bands out there.

And if you get a chance.....SEE THEM LIVE.....IT'S AMAZING!

Every song on this album is just plain beautiful. Even the screaming is done tastefully and never really gets annoying, and for me, that's something pretty hard to accomplish. This album in general just fits together perfectly, it has its ups and downs, and it never ends up sounding the same. There just always seems to be something in each song that catches your attention even without there being any kind of chorus.

On a whim I got this album. Now its one of my all time favorites.

The duo really seem to understand the importance of texture, layering, and of contrast. Oh yeah, there's yelling. If that's all you are hearing, you aren't listening closely enough. It's just an emotional dynamic that pushes the recordings over the edge in a great way. Thom Yorke isn't the first thing I think of when hearing the vocals. I think its less a case of him trying to sound like Yorke, but of some listeners hearing elements that are present in many singers, Yorke included, and of a bit of overexposure of Radiohead--who are indeed a great band, just well-listened to. It is useful in some sense to define one band with others more familiar, but there reaches a point where you actually have to talk about what the music is, not just what it is like.

And this music is wonderful. Delicate textures cascade in some tracks (lucid) while others are more aggressive (spark plug), all the while never losing focus of the intricate sound field these two guys are weaving. In these days where so many albums are really just a loosely related selection of singles, this release feels right as a whole, so put it on and listen to it all the way through. These guys really paid attention the the work they were doing, and you will find few recording artists capable of this kind of product.

Idiot Pilot's deput LP, Strange We Should Meet Here, takes a bunch of musical genres that are usually entirely separate and fuses them into a moving, interesting sound. Predictablly, those who dislike screaming may not enjoy Idiot Pilot- yes, there are some backround screaming vocals, but they only enhance the music, not degrade it. (of course, if you cannot tolerate screaming in general you won't enjoy all the songs on this album.) One of the great things about Idiot Pilot is the way they weave the vocals, which is very refreshing. The singer does sound like Thom Yorke- but who doesn't these days? They mix post-hardcore with electronica and alternative and create something that sounds unique. And there is little unique music out there right now.
Tracks Open Register, To Buy A Gun, Strange We Should Meet Here, and A Light At the End of the Tunnel are my favorites.

This type of music makes me really angry at the people who made it, because it could've been really really great.

I completely agree with a previous reviewer here: this is almost a really superb record. The compositional skill is amazing, the eclectic instrumentation is inspired, and when he's singing the frontman sounds like another Thom Yorke.

When he's singing. The problem is, a little ways into every song he starts yelling.

If this was a hardcore album this would be just fine. I don't like hardcore at all, personally, but far be it from me to diss a hardcore album just because I don't see the value in that type of music.

The thing is: Idiot Pilot's Strange We Should Meet Here doesn't play like a hardcore album. Most tracks start out with electronica or fine-tuned instrumentation that sounds like pure indie. The harmonies are great and mellow, and the melody lines are great. Every track I hear starts out amazingly. "A Day In The Life Of A Poolshark" and the title track are examples. Great lyrics, great singing, great mood. These are wonderful songs -- until he starts screaming for no reason.

It's like getting a great indie album from a friend, but then realizing halfway through each song that your friend is going to start screaming over the music.

Let me put it this way: if these guys edited out the screeching present in almost every otherwise amazing songs, this record would be five-star.

As it is, this is two-and-a-half at best. I hope future albums exclude the stupid genre-mixing, because it ruins a really astonishing band's talent almost totally.

Like many have stated here before me, this is an amazing album - instrumentally. If you're a fan of Radiohead or anything Tom Yorke influenced, then you will dig it. However, there is one glaring issue with these guys that's this reviewer is unable to ignore: the screaming.

Imagine if you were listening to a brand new Radiohead song and then all of a sudden some guy started screaming indistinguishably over top of the music, and that's Idiot Pilot. If they would cut out the terrible screaming then I'd be inclined to recommend this album to almost anyone because it's almost amazing, were it not for that.

Review by Rahul Chandiok:

If the enormity of different and growing hardcore and punk genres weren't enough, here comes Idiot Pilot with their major label debut album Strange We Should Meet Here, as well as their riveting combination of electronic, progressive, hardcore, and punk music. Idiot Pilot are a group of two friends in their early 20's who were constantly striving to find ground-breaking music that fit all of their musical tastes. Due to the frustration of being unable to find the music they were looking for, they simply decided to create their own band that blended an enormity of their influences into one eclectic, yet aggressive musical duo.

Their music, however, varies between songs like "Open Register", which features sort of a pop and electronic rock aspect to it, to songs like "To Buy A Gun", which features aggressive screaming vocals and a completely distorted guitar in the background. Indeed, Idiot Pilot offers something for everyone and defines them as a band without a clear-cut genre to place them within. "The Violent Tango" also features an example of vehement, post-hardcore influenced music grafted within eclectic choruses that are a bit reminiscent of a song the band Glassjaw might produce.

Idiot Pilot definitely proves them as a worthy band that is well skilled and efficiently able to produce a class act rock album. Although this band does seem to reproduce what has already been done in the past, Idiot Pilot blends these recreations together to create something entirely different. Call it electrocore, eclectic metal, or whatever other genres come to your mind seeing as how broad Idiot Pilot's musical spectrum is. This is definitely a band to look out for in the not too distant future.

I haven't heard this album in its entirety (i'm ordering it as we speak) but I just got back from seeing these guys open for Team Sleep in Nashville, and my jaw is still on the floor. I honestly don't know how to begin to describe them. They literally blew me away as they made their way through the first track. It had a nice electronic feel accompanied by a guy with a real smoothe voice. Then out of nowhere the guitarist just starts screaming his lungs out into the mic. As I said, I was completely blown away. At some points through their setlist it did get a little monotonous, and almost annoying, but for the most part I was thoroughly impressed. This is a very talented duo of young musicians. (18 years old? says Amazon) Support their cause!

i've been following idiot pilot for quite sometime and not only are they two of the nicest boys i've ever met, but their music never ceases to amaze me. i've seen countless live shows, and i stand in awe everytime. their energy and talent is impressive and the type of music that they are producing is, i feel, revolutionary. i'm so excited for their success and i hope that this major label release can reach as many ears as possible. please listen. you'll love it! (and then see them live and love it even more!)

Well... like many kids out there, when your favorite band comes to town, you go no matter who the opening band is. So when the Used came to Calgary for the "Taste of Chaos" tour in March 2005, I made sure i went, not expecting much of most of the starting bands. Right when the show started, these two guys came out, with a guitar... two microphones and a computer. At first, i thought, "what kinda joke is this?" but soon learned not to judge a book by its cover. The music started, and left myself, as well as most of the audience around me, captivated, awaiting more. I fell in love. Idiot Pilot is definitly one of the greatest new bands out there, definitly check them out.