Roaring Riffs and Lilting Lyrics Mini-Review Rampage, Music Edition #3

To clarify a point that was brought my attention, a bit of background before the reviews. As readers of the blog have noted, I tend to refrain from giving any kind of numeric score or anything of the sort with my reviews; I feel they're generally not useful if you're looking for a true review rather than seeking to validate your opinion. Thus, it is kind of odd that for my music reviews I've kind of been assigning a score in terms of the number of 5-starred songs.

There's a couple reasons for it. First off, it's an easy metric; it's not some number I'm pulling from nowhere, I don't have to think about it, I just have to look at my iTunes library. Secondly, although I'm reviewing the album as such, the way I listen to music tends to mean that if I don't 5-star a song, it's unlikely I'll ever listen to it; thus, you can view 5-starred songs as the number of songs in an album that I personally would re-listen to (and do).

Perhaps this means I should be doing individual song reviews rather than album, but there's a key reason why I don't, even though it kind of sucks: my backlog of albums means if a song wasn't memorable, as logically follows I don't remember it and probably don't have anything to say about it. Considering my short-story reviews tend to be broken down into individual stories as well as the collection as a whole, it probably follows that albums deserve similar treatment, but the backlog means this would be more work than I'm willing to do.

In the future, once I'm caught up, I may change my methods, but no promises. Keep in mind that while the metric is useful, since if I 5-starred every song on an album (such as the case for At Mount Zoomer) it probably means I think the album as a whole as fantastic, the reverse is not necessarily true. Although I suspect you already know, the written words are more important than a vague number, and although I will continue to provide the number it  is by no means the main point of the review.

Making the Noise Marines Proud: Mini-Review Rampage, Music Edition #2

I'm getting bad at coming up with clever introductions to these, so I'll just continue on and start the first music review. Feedback is as always welcome!

Artist: Wolf Parade

Album: Expo 86

Genre: Alternative (Indie Rock)

5-Starred Songs: 6 (out of 11)

Wolf Parade has for quite some time now been one of my all-time favorite bands. Their debut album, Apologies to the Queen Mary, while not perfect, was quite impressive and got my hooked. Their second album, At Mount Zoomer, is as close to a perfect album as I can imagine existing: every song was great, and I had no complaints, and it still sits as one of my personal "best albums of all time." Therefore when they released their third (and probably final) album, I had some trepidation. Could it possibly match At Mount Zoomer, or was I bound for disappointment?

The answer to both queries, weirdly, is no. It wasn't quite as good as At Mount Zoomer, but it was still a great album nonetheless. It opens with the rollicking, catchy, and upbeat Cloud Shadow On The Mountain, and cycles through a number of other upbeat, powerfully strumming-along songs such as Cave-o-sapien and Yulia. Overall the album is probably the upbeat of the trio of albums, and probably comes closer to pop in some ways, but it's still very thoroughly a Wolf Parade album even with the shift of emphasis. Although not a perfect album, overall it still did not disappoint, and is a great listen.