“All Parts Bloody Brilliant”
Incendiary Magazine just dropped another f-ing glowing review of the record. Damian Leslie, the writer, understood what we were trying to do and it captured his imagination in a pretty powerful way. Some very beautiful words. Here are some choice quotations:
Part folk, part rock, part electronica, all parts bloody brilliant, Pain is a Reliable Signal is the kind of record that defies categorization and is all the better for it.
And this closing little bit:
It may not have been inspired by the most enjoyable period of his life, but what Sam Jacobs and his associates have created here is fascinating. Well meaning, well intentioned, impassioned and completely worthy of your time and money this is one of the easiest albums I’ve ever had to recommend. It’s a truly powerful and mature piece of work and if ever there was an album worth seeking out, this is it. A true gem.
Really, the whole thing is good. Thanks, Damian, for your generous words. Take a look. Great stuff.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:38 am
So what was the secret — were you up for 36 hours and about to pass out, or could you not be bothered to open your mouth properly? But seriously, congrats on the review.
By the way, have you gotten any bad reviews yet? Like a totally panning of the album? Seems it won't be quite totally legitimate until it majorly pisses somebody off.
April 1st, 2009 at 5:23 am
The secret was not pushing too hard and letting the microphones do their
job.
We (the royal we) have not gotten any bad reviews yet. But that's actually
a subject for a different blog post which is that the criticism in the field
of music is much more binary than in film for example. I have a few
theories. But IF they review it, they will probably like it (unless you're
a huge band that has to be reviewed). So the bad reviews are all the
writers that don't feel like reviewing the record. That won't be true if I
get a Pitchfork review but it's probably true for smaller more niche
publications.
As an anecdotal test case, I was going to average the scores from records on
Metacritic and compare it to the average film score. Just eyeballing it
looks like music scores much higher because, again, if you're getting a
review at all it's usually because they like something about the record.
April 1st, 2009 at 8:38 am
So what was the secret — were you up for 36 hours and about to pass out, or could you not be bothered to open your mouth properly? But seriously, congrats on the review.
By the way, have you gotten any bad reviews yet? Like a totally panning of the album? Seems it won't be quite totally legitimate until it majorly pisses somebody off.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:23 pm
The secret was not pushing too hard and letting the microphones do their
job.
We (the royal we) have not gotten any bad reviews yet. But that's actually
a subject for a different blog post which is that the criticism in the field
of music is much more binary than in film for example. I have a few
theories. But IF they review it, they will probably like it (unless you're
a huge band that has to be reviewed). So the bad reviews are all the
writers that don't feel like reviewing the record. That won't be true if I
get a Pitchfork review but it's probably true for smaller more niche
publications.
As an anecdotal test case, I was going to average the scores from records on
Metacritic and compare it to the average film score. Just eyeballing it
looks like music scores much higher because, again, if you're getting a
review at all it's usually because they like something about the record.