This came out a week ago. I'm about halfway through at time of post. I'm slackin'. Quick sloppy unassociated thoughts.
Resigning myself to the fact that the minimalism of 11:11 and Songs is as dead as leaves and just appreciating it for what it is, I really like this quite a bit. The piano is still front and center, and the other bells and whistles (not literally, because I don't think Andrew Bird is on here, lol) are dialed down a bit from the jarring production levels of Begin to Hope. "Eet" is my favorite song so far. It's basically a Frou Frou song, and I really liked that Frou Frou album! This song has many dance recitals and senior year retrospective PowerPoints in its future, you can just tell. "Folding Chair" bears strong resemblance to Ben Folds's stuff on Supersunnyspeedgraphic, which isn't the worst thing. "Machine" has lots of nice rumbly lower register piano and traditional Regina Spektorish melodies that sound like several of her other songs I can't think of offhand, but in a good way, not a lazy self-derivative way. I'm just saying she has a style, is all. While I like the sound of "Laughing With," I find the whole "no one's laughing at God when (a terrible thing is about to happen)" trope far too self-evident to be the lyrical revelation I fear it wants to be. I'm sure "no atheists in a foxhole" has been done before and better than this, unless it's only been done by Roger Waters, in which case this is probably the better List Song.
EDIT: "Dance Anthem of the '80s" has a nice little throwback intro before modernizing itself nicely. Fun tune. "Genius Next Door" starts out similarly solo before all the reverb, pads, and string-synths come in to muck up the works. Better off without that stuff. "The Wallet" is the third of a kind here, where I thought we'd finally get a classic tune about some mundane life experience with some vocalized percussion stand-ins, and then I get swerved with superfluous sound coming in.
Overall, I think this is quite a good album. I held her to the high standards of her own doing on this one, so I probably sound more negative about this than I really am, but I'm happy with it, and not let down at all. Like I said, now that's she's comfortably submainstream, she can't away with just recording herself making odd noises. We'll always have the odd noises, though. I've learned to love the polished stuff on Begin to Hope (I used to hate "On the Radio" and now I love it!), so I'll surely learn to love the various accoutrements on Far that annoyed me, given time. I recommend this one, sure, but I don't know if this is that kind of crowd. Our metal thread's like 10 pages long.
Resigning myself to the fact that the minimalism of 11:11 and Songs is as dead as leaves and just appreciating it for what it is, I really like this quite a bit. The piano is still front and center, and the other bells and whistles (not literally, because I don't think Andrew Bird is on here, lol) are dialed down a bit from the jarring production levels of Begin to Hope. "Eet" is my favorite song so far. It's basically a Frou Frou song, and I really liked that Frou Frou album! This song has many dance recitals and senior year retrospective PowerPoints in its future, you can just tell. "Folding Chair" bears strong resemblance to Ben Folds's stuff on Supersunnyspeedgraphic, which isn't the worst thing. "Machine" has lots of nice rumbly lower register piano and traditional Regina Spektorish melodies that sound like several of her other songs I can't think of offhand, but in a good way, not a lazy self-derivative way. I'm just saying she has a style, is all. While I like the sound of "Laughing With," I find the whole "no one's laughing at God when (a terrible thing is about to happen)" trope far too self-evident to be the lyrical revelation I fear it wants to be. I'm sure "no atheists in a foxhole" has been done before and better than this, unless it's only been done by Roger Waters, in which case this is probably the better List Song.
EDIT: "Dance Anthem of the '80s" has a nice little throwback intro before modernizing itself nicely. Fun tune. "Genius Next Door" starts out similarly solo before all the reverb, pads, and string-synths come in to muck up the works. Better off without that stuff. "The Wallet" is the third of a kind here, where I thought we'd finally get a classic tune about some mundane life experience with some vocalized percussion stand-ins, and then I get swerved with superfluous sound coming in.
Overall, I think this is quite a good album. I held her to the high standards of her own doing on this one, so I probably sound more negative about this than I really am, but I'm happy with it, and not let down at all. Like I said, now that's she's comfortably submainstream, she can't away with just recording herself making odd noises. We'll always have the odd noises, though. I've learned to love the polished stuff on Begin to Hope (I used to hate "On the Radio" and now I love it!), so I'll surely learn to love the various accoutrements on Far that annoyed me, given time. I recommend this one, sure, but I don't know if this is that kind of crowd. Our metal thread's like 10 pages long.
