Customer Reviews

Traineater (Dig)

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

 

 

I bought this, to be honest, to be a complete-ist. I am a huge fan of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and having heard a couple tracks on the bands' Myspace page, I figured I'd pick this up to make sure I had everything I could from every member.
We-hell, was I in for a shock. This album is AMAZING. Guest vocalists include: Carla Bozulich (Evangelista), Wu Fei, Mike Watts, Megan Reilly, and others. Songs like, "View From the Watertower", the title track, "Traineater", and "Salina", are haunting, lingering pieces that stay with you for hours. Tracks like, "Pray" (featuring Tom Waits), "Red Apple Boy", and "Boomtown", are edgy, driving, but unsettling. Nothing I put into words will do this album justice, so just do yourself a favor & pick it up. For fans of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Residents, Patty Smith, & good music everywhere. Seriously, no matter what you like, you will like something on this record.

A lot of material has been written about the decline of the rustbelt and the tragic conclusion of the industrial rise of the Midwest, a lot of songwriters have adopted this imagery as their conceit-du-jour. But nothing has hit the mark quite as accurately and bracingly as "Traineater."

I haven't been able to listen to anything else since I wandered into a bookstore three days ago, randomly walked down one of their CD aisles with no intention of actually purchasing anything, randomly picked up this CD (which was misfiled under the letter "T" instead of under the actual band name), scanned the back cover with mounting interest (Tom Waits? Mike Watt?? Carla Bozulich??? Zeena Parkins???? David Thomas?????), actually asked my girlfriend's permission to impulse-buy this strange unknown record, and...

I've been searching for touchstones to relate to this collaborative ensemble. It seems tangentially like some of Eric Avery's work outside of Jane's Addiction, such as the Deconstruction one-off. The wiry guitars and spiky production recalls the first Banyan album. The dense spoken word pieces make me think of Unknown Instructors. Occasionally heavy, dirge-like passages sound akin to the Melvins. For so many cooks being involved in such an ambitious recipe, Traineater is remarkably cohesive. It is in no way background music, but it's great to paint to. The level of talent and daring on display here is something the songwriters behind Book Of Knots should be very, very proud of.

Book of Knots nails it. You know it's a good record when you wake up in the morning from a dream that incorporated the elegy for Factory Town, USA (the album's superb, eminently coverable title track was in my head when my eyes opened this morning -- after only having heard the song a half-dozen times!). Living in Lansing, Michigan, where GM constantly hints they will close up shop if they aren't given huge tax breaks and environmental loopholes, Traineater connects like the throat-burn of whiskey.

This won't be just about the Midwest for long. This is the coffee we all should wake up and smell.

The Book Of Knots' new album "Traineater" builds a conceptual portrait of American cities denied of a post-modern existence. Anticipate well-crafted songs played to a textured narrative of sombre storytelling, especially "Hands Of Production", "The Ballad Of John Henry", and "Boomtown". The Book Of Knots features New York-based musicians from Skeleton Key, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Sparklehorse, and They Might Be Giants. "Traineater" also has several special guests, including Tom Waits, Carla Bozulich, Jon Langford, Megan Reilly, David Thomas, and Mike Watt.

This record is incredible. If you like Swans, Melvins, Pere Ubu, Tom Waits, heavy, melodic, haunting stuff this record will run your life for a while. Enjoy the gloomy beauty....

This was a wonderful, out-of-the-blue discovery for me. I have not heard the group's first album, but this second disc is a marvelous roar of towering sludge and aggressive artiness. The guest vocals by Tom Waits, Mike Watt, Carla Bozulich (Geraldine Fibbers) and David Thomas (Pere Ubu) are the superficial lure (one track apiece), but the performances by singer Carla Kihlstedt are just as strong -- and could attract a few Karen O. fans. Pere Ubu bassist Tony Maimone is one of the instrumental kingpins, and the mix of spoken word, unconventional vocals, avant-garde and post-punk dissonance has a familiar ring. However, the tempos are more sluggish and lumbering. Puts me in the mood to pull out my old Killdozer records at times, except this group has far more technical expertise.

Bozulich's opening piece is just stunningly horrific (and the album's clear highlight), but other gems include Waits' "Pray" and Kihlstedt's more haunting, subdued treatments of the title song, "Midnight" and "Salina." There isn't one bad track, though -- even the weakest moments serve as necessary "glue" between the central showcases.

The rotating-supergroup feel reminds me of This Mortal Coil on a conceptual level -- again, a certain offbeat segment of sympathetic artists have merged into an elusive sampler which transcends the sum of its parts. Anti- Records really has become a dependably solid label, and this overlooked disc is yet more proof.

i bought this CD having heard one or two mp3s on the label website.. often when i buy a CD on a whim after hearing one or two tracks i end up being disappointed but this CD was everything i hoped it would be. the music is distinct and vivid, it paints colorful images in my mind of people and places.. it is looming, dreamy, playful at times.. all in all well worth the money, something i don't say about albums very often!