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Review:
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In order to increase the incredible amount of
material that they have available, Hood have released a single
to augment their album Cold
House. It's a short release that explores their
fusion of indie pop and IDM a little further than what you got
on the album.
The title track, You Show No Emotion At All is from
the album. This track is a decent song of wavering synths and
beats that hiss and pop, over which the lead Hood brother sings.
It's a decent tune, not my favorite on the album, but far from
it's weakest track.
This release (which i am going to classify as a "single" just
for the hell of it) adds three more songs, and a short video.
Let's examine each in more detail.
Across the Lonely Writing Side is a cold, dreary indie
rock song. Very typical of Hood, and the mood they create with
their music. However, rather than their normal drumming this
song has light, skittering computer beats. The computer sounds
work, and this is a nice tune.
Painting the Town Dead is a very similar tune. It's
low-key dreary rock with laptop beats. However, the guitar melody
here stands out, and the voice is fed through some light distortion,
which gives the song a vaguely creepy feeling. Again, it is
a nice enough song.
And wrapping up the musical portion of the release is Ghost
by Japan, which is the most IDM of the tracks. It sounds
as if the whole thing has been fed through a computer and Autechre-ized.
It's my least favorite on the single, but is not a bad tune
by any stretch. It just sounds, well, kind of generic for this
type of stuff.
But wait -- if you have a computer you can also watch a video
for You Show No Emotion At All. It's a little quicktime
thing on the CD, so plop it into your computer and give it a
whirl. They really oughta figure out a way to make these enhanced
CDs work in a DVD player as well. I would much rather watch
a video on my TV than on my computer. But hen again, i'm just
not a "visuals" person. The very thought of having to devote
two of my sense to experiecing something fills me with boredom.
But i viewed this for you people (oh, the sacrifices i make),
and because, well, i guess i might as well. I mean, Hood went
through all this trouble to put it on the disc. However, in
all likelihood i will never watch this thing again. But that's
just me. I wonder if other fans watch the videos on these enhanced
CDs more than once. Hmmm...
Anyway -- the video. It is very Hood. It is a stream of fuzzy,
jumpy images that are somewhat out of focus. It looks homemade,
and the grainyness and jumpiness of the video seems to be the
visual equivalent of IDM. Kind of neat, from that respect. Specifically,
this seems to be footage of a car trip through overcast scenery.
It's pretty out, but not too sunny. This is the type of landscape
that makes me think of Hood's music, so it really works. However,
the general lo-fi quality and the lack of any people in the
shots (you see trees and signs) reminds me of La
Prochaine Fois, the movie to accompany the latest
Neotropic release. This has a similar feel to it.
So, on the whole, this is a pleasant single. Not spectactular,
but not bad. If you enjoy Hood's experiments with electronic
music sounds, then this is a worthwile purchase. |
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