The current ubiquity of indie rock is, for me at least, a troubling phenomenon. Spoon and the New Pornographers appearing in commercials; Wilco racing up the Billboard charts; LCD Soundsystem working for freakin’ Nike. The world as I know it is coming to an end.
No longer will I be able to bitch about the radio whilst ironically endorsing the top pop single (but “Since U Been Gone” is seriously awesome). It appears that the only thing that made me different from John Q. Badhaircut is about to evaporate.
Or maybe not. Maybe it’s not too late after all. I can always cling to the Winter Sounds.
You see, the Winter Sounds are not a great band. In fact, they’re not even particularly good. I’ve listened to their new CD, Porcelain Empire, roughly 20 times while writing this review, and not once have I made it from beginning to end without forgetting that I was even listening to music.
In many ways, it’s a remarkable achievement: these songs don’t blend in the same way that, say, ambient music does. Rather, they sound like absolutely nothing at all. Needless to say, this has made my job much harder.
It’s not that the Winter Sounds are bad. It’s just that they’re so dynamically mediocre that they defy categorization. I can’t remember any of the track titles unless I’m looking at the CD jewel case.
None of the lyrics have any more heft than an average poetry class submission. Their sound is original only in the sense that I’ve never heard anything else quite so soulless. The whole record sounds like a robot’s approximation of indie rock.
..and not a cool robot, like Bender or Brian Eno.
In fact, it wouldn’t even be an evil robot like in The Day the Earth Stood Still. It sounds like the kind of music that a car manufacturing robot would make. Even the record’s title, Porcelain Empire, is skull-invertingly boring.
I think it’s supposed to symbolize America’s current foreign policy, a la Conrad’s description of Belgium as a whited sepulcher. It just makes me think of a huge—albeit regal—toilet. Which isn’t even bad enough to be funny.
It’s just boring. So, unless you have serious, serious sleep deprivation problems and no access to prescription meds or Early Times bourbon, do not purchase this record.
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