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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the first Must Have albums of the year, March 13, 2006
I dont like giving 5 star reviews out but holy smokes I cannot deny what my ears are feeding me.
This album is still very Larry Arms for those who have been scared the band had made a drastic change with the success of Chicago peers Fallout Boy,The Academy is and such.
From start to finish the energy of this album is outstanding. The key change to The Arms this album is dual vocals. In the past Brendan and Chris have taken turns with vocals. On this album the boys combine their efforts flawlessly. The clean vocals of Chris trading off with the snotty nasally vocals of Brendan creates a fresh sound and in my humble opinion, the best Lawrence Arms album to date.
Another plus of this album is the production. All recorded onto Analog to 2inch tape, the album has an amazing sound. I suggest picking this album up right now and turning on "Recovering the Opposable Thumb" and see if you dont get those chills down you're spine. Enjoy! (and go see them live!)
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic album, April 28, 2006
I have listened to the arms for a few years now. I've always thought there was something special about their sound. The previous albums are great. Even so, I've always known that they could be even better. However, this album is a step in the right direction. The "softer" tracks that you heard on the previous release "Greatest story..." are blown away by kick ass punkrock anthems. Great, in my opinion.
The only thing that I could possibly miss on this record is a song like "Ramblin' boys of pleasure". Not one song on this album really reaches that level. There are attempts though, like "Jumping the shark" and "Beyond the embarrasing style" for example.
This album is filled with nice riffs and great, clever lyrics (as always when Lawrence Arms deliver). To sum up; "Oh! Calcutta!" is a solid punk/rock album from Lawrence Arms. Close to a 5 /5.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Oh! Chicago!, March 13, 2006
To me, there are 4 types of albums. 1)The ones you just hate. 2)The ones you just can't get into no matter how hard you try. 3)The ones you fall in love with by the first chorus of the first song. 4)And the ones that take a few spins but by the third or fourth time through everything clicks and that album will be glued into your home stereo, your car stereo, your ipod, your girlfriends car, and one for your boyfriends house too.
Oh! Calcutta! comes from catagory 4. The first couple times through, I didn't know what to think. There seemed to be too much to take in all at once. But then I started to get it, and once I got it, I couldn't get it out of my head, or my cd player.
The genius of Oh! Calcutta! is its mix of familiar and unfamiliar territory. This is definitly a Lawrence Arms album with all the things that made me a fan in the first place. The differences between Chris' and Brendan's vocals. Neil's energetic drumming. Aggressive and rowdy, melodic and catchy, punk rock poetry. But this album is not "safe". It's not just about what you'd expect, but also, it's what you should hope for, and thats the creativity. To try new ways of doing things, and incorperating new elements into their "Sound". Each song creates a new version of that "sound" by adding new twists to the familiar style.
One thing most fans will notice is the "unity" in the vocals. Most previous TLA songs can be described as "Bren songs" & "Chris songs". Here there is almost no such destinction. This time the guys spend most of the time singing together in unison or trading off lines. This is one of the greatest new things on this album. It's kinda like Hot Water Music's pre-Epitaph vocals, where both singers finished eachothers sentences and sung over and under eachother. This works really well here.
And lastly, Chris' vocals have never sounded better than on this recording. They have a more "raw" feel that they sometimes lacked on the previous two FAT releases, and never came through clearly on their early stuff (no doubt due to lesser recording quality). This time it feels like nothing was held back and was captured perfectly.
This is punk rock, how it should be done. It's got that "East Bay" style with that "Chicago" sensibility. Good Stuff. I give it 4 1/2 Stars.
Stand out tracks: 'Great Lakes,Great Escapes', 'Are You There Margaret...', 'Beyond the Embarrassing Style', 'Key To the City'.
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