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Slow Runner
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No Disassemble
Red Ink
Release: 1/24/2006
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Rated:
Review by:
Jason Warner
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"Happy" reminds me of Thingy and Pinback, mainly the
voice. Lots of keyboards, synths and drum machines. Not
as melodic or poppy as The Postal Service, yet still quite
poppy. "You're In Luck" is a standout track with nice little
ironic swears and great melody, harmony vocals as well.
This track has some nice live drums, a rarity on this album.
This song would be great on the radio if it wasn't for the two
executions of the F bomb. "Everything is Exactly What it
Seems" is a fantastic song, nice moody dark piano rif, nice
and dancey. "She's not hiding wings beneath her leather
jacket… making my way downtown through the maze… I
thought I'd figure out how to change, but you never change."
A song that is about exactly what it is about. Lush guitars, a
little glockenspiel tinkling away in the background, maybe a
little banjo? It's hard to hear. Nice synth processor
breakdown in the middle and then nice little calm repeated
piano part comes back, adding guitars, synth, and drum
machine, it's the pop version of a post-rock wall of sound.
The end is the synth processor all by itself, just hanging
there like a microchip jumping off a cliff.
"Redneck Bar" is a train wreck of a cheezefest that belongs
more on a Toby Keith album than in this format. While I can
appreciate the tongue-in-cheek factor here, I think the
addition of this song was neither necessary nor a good idea.
It makes me take the band less seriously, and while I realize
the band might be getting a big laugh out of this I thought
the music of the song was good and would have been better
served by some more thoughtful lyrics. The rest of the
album shows the band cares at least somewhat about
serious music so that makes me second guess myself and
wonder if maybe this track was just included as some
comedy relief intermission at the midway point. Still, I didn't
like this track.
Taking a second listen to most of the lyrics reveals maybe
they are not trying to be serious, and as a reviewer with
multiple releases coming across the CD player every week I
don't get much of a chance to understand the context the
band is releasing the album in, so I apologize if I have
missed the mark with this judgment, but I guess that's kind
of my job after all. I have to make a judgment and
oftentimes I haven't even heard of the band before. I'm
sure there's some little pixie girls dancing around at a Slow
Runner show singing along to "Redneck Bar" like it's their
very own "American Pie" (by Don McLean, not the dumb
band camp movies). |
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