Reviewing Pitchfork: So Many Dynamos "The Loud Wars"

What am I reading? In this new series, I'll be analyzing music reviews from the highly influential website Pitchfork. The majority of Pitchfork reviews are at times slightly esoteric and ridiculous, but they're unfortunately taken as gospel by some due to Pitchfork's stature in the online music news realm, sometimes even elevating the profile of mediocre acts and lowering the profile of other bands that deserve exposure.

So what? The music review is a fickle thing. Often influential, reviews are written by a particular person with particular preferences during a particular moment while they are in a particular mood. Being in a good mood or being into a certain genre of music while writing a review may lead to a reviewer giving an album a higher rating than it deserves, or vice versa. The problem is that in this day and age, when many people tend judge albums by the numerical ratings reviewers give them, music reviews have a bit too much influence and can often be misleading.

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Let's start with Pitchfork's recent review of The Loud Wars by So Many Dynamos. Reviewer Paul Thompson, on his way to awarding the album a mediocre rating of 5.5, makes two points that really stick out.

1) Regarding the similarities of the album to music of the late 90s D.C. scene, Thompson writes: "So, yeah, if you'd walked into Melody Records circa summer 1999 and heard The Loud Wars, you wouldn't have batted an eye. And that's just it; The Loud Wars is formula, and it's not even really the Dynamos' formula to use, so when the songs fall a bit flat, it's hard to know whom to point the finger at."

"It's not even really the Dynamos' formula to use"? Whose formula is it, then? Has the late 90s D.C. sound been copywrited by the bands that were part of it? And since when is taking influence from other bands a crime? One can imply from the review that Paul Thompson used to have an affinity for bands like Q and Not U and The Dismemberment Plan, so he should be able to tell the difference between those two bands' breakthrough efforts and The Loud Wars; while they share some musical similarities, sonically they are of a different age.

Perhaps this is just Thompson's version of tough love. Earlier this year, Pitchfork writer Ian Cohen reviewed The Pains of Being Pure at Heart's s/t debut (an album by another band that at times wears its influences on its sleeve) and said, "The Pains of Being Pure at Heart simply made a slyly confident debut that mixes sparkling melodies with an undercurrent of sad bastard mopery, and you're just being a dick if you think the past has some kind of patent on that. That's just the way good pop music works." One would also assume that the past has no patent on mixing angular guitar work with a breakneck rhythm section, either.

2) Continuing, Thompson says about the album: "The Loud Wars runs on amicably enough...and you'd be hard up to finger a bad tune here, but it's all about the same: the same reference points, the same too-busy-by-half arrangements, the same emphasis on proficiency over depth, the same defensively bummed out lyrics, the same slightly sour melodies, the same sense that you're dancing through some kind of dread that's hard to place a finger on."

If it's hard to actually identify a bad track on the album, why the 5.5? Because it's "all about the same"? Okay, let's look at that for a second. "The same reference points"? If other bands can use "the same reference points" and not be penalized for it (again, see The Pains of Being Pure at Heart), then why can't So Many Dynamos? "Proficiency over depth"? A glance through The Loud Wars' CD booklet reveals the large amount of thought the band put into the album, especially musically (for example, some of the melodies in the album are melodies from older So Many Dynamos songs played backwards). "Too busy"? Songs like "Friendarmy" and "The Formula" have some rather spacious bridges and "New Bones" slowly builds for over four minutes before getting busy. "Defensively bummed out lyrics"? While some of the album's lyrics may fit this description, it's not true in all cases (for example, "Artifacts of Sound" features discussion of the current state of music without any self-deprecation attached). Thompson just seems too willing to dismiss this album as a "throwback" despite his admission that none of the songs are bad.

In sum, Thompson should not have penalized So Many Dynamos so much for taking cues from their musical influences. Admitting that it's hard to pick out a bad song on the album should make it clear to the reader that the album is, at the least, a solid, consistent effort from a band that happens to take some influence from music of the past. Really, the 5.5 rating seems to stem mainly from Thompson being "over" this late 90s D.C. scene that The Loud Wars reminds him of, and little else.

So Many Dynamos - The Loud Wars review

In 2006, So Many Dynamos released their second album Flashlights, an album that improved dramatically from their first. This progression continues with The Loud Wars. Opener "Artifacts of Sound" properly introduces us to The Loud Wars by cramming in four minutes of fast, off-kilter, technical, danceable music. With songs like this, the band has the right to sing lyrics like, "Get me out of this party/Because it's boring and so uneventful/Get me out of this party/All the rhyming is so predictable"; there's never a dull moment in The Loud Wars, and it's unpredictable and interesting both musically and lyrically.

Musically, the band has never sounded better. Though initially nothing stands out as much as their most well-known song "Search Party," it's clear that every song is solid and the majority are shining achievements, resulting in what is by far their most consistently impressive album (really, only "Glaciers" fails to leave a lasting impression). What if Talking Heads had the technology of today when they formed? They'd probably have written something similar to "New Bones," one of the strangest, most unique dance rock songs released in recent memory and one of the Dynamos' most anthemic tracks. During its five minutes, the music builds and builds on top of the consistent, driving beat, slowly but surely leading to an explosive outro. It's one of the album's catchiest songs, and it's not a shock that the band chose to release it as the album's first single.

The Loud Wars has some of the band's hardest songs as well; tracks like "Oh, the Devastation!" possess unrelenting, frantic drumming and guitar work reminiscent of Cinemechanica. The impressive musicianship present in The Loud Wars is augmented by the production of Chris Walla, who helped the band create some of the best drum sounds this side of "Tired of Sex" (especially in "The Formula"), something the band wished to accomplish from the start (for anyone interested, the recording of the album is documented on So Many Dynamos' recording/touring/all-purpose blog. Check out the first posts from 2007). The album's only real issues are the sometimes overproduced vocals (notably the first verse of "The Formula") and the occasional synth overload: the synth overpowers the guitar work in "If You Didn't Want to Know," and in the intro to "It's Gonna Rain," it nearly forces the drums out of the picture. However, there are plenty of instances where the synth sounds great (notably the bridge of "Friendarmy"); sometimes the band just struggles to find the right balance.

Often times, carefully crafted and musically impressive albums serve up lyrics that are obviously little more than afterthoughts but in the case of The Loud Wars, things only get better when taking the lyrics into consideration. The band paints pictures of disorder and destruction on both a micro and macro scale. From tales of glaciers melting and the St. Louis Arch collapsing to disputes among friends and romantic interests, the album is teeming with detail-rich wordplay. Lyrics like "Wine stains on your favorite rug/And there's a hole where the living room was," ("It's Gonna Rain") and "If you wanted to know that it happened before/On the kitchen counter, the living room floor" ("If You Didn't Want to Know") exemplify this lyrical specificity, and lyrics like "The fault line skipped/And my knees keep shaking," and "In a million years we'll all just be fossils" ("The Formula") provide a sense of impending doom. If the world's going to end and there's no chance to stop it, we might as well dance and sing along as hard and loud as possible until it collapses; or, to use their words, "I don't want to make amends/I just want to make a mess." With The Loud Wars, So Many Dynamos provides the perfect music to accompany the chaos.

So Many Dynamos are touring throughout the summer, with one show coming up at Valentine's in Albany on June 11th with Maps & Atlases. As good as they are on record, they're even better live. Do yourself a favor and catch them before they blow up and play larger venues. The Loud Wars comes out on June 9th courtesy of Vagrant Records.

Listen to "Artifacts of Sound" and "New Bones" here.

So Many Dynamos - The Loud Wars release announced

It's official: So Many Dynamos' new album The Loud Wars will be released by Vagrant Records on April 28th, 2009.

1	Artifacts of Sound
2	Glaciers
3	The Novelty of Haunting
4	New Bones
5	If You Didn’t Want To Know
6	Oh, The Devastation
7	Keep It Simple
8	Friendarmy
9	It’s Gonna Rain
10	The Formula

Oh yes, this will be a big one. Best of 2009? Place your bets.

Watch: So Many Dynamos "The Novelty of Haunting" live

Gold Sounds at CMJ: Part 3

Wednesday night, Hello Sir Records Showcase @ Bowery Poetry Club: The illustrious Hello Sir Records organized quite the show Wednesday night, featuring some Hello Sir mainstays and some up-and-coming artists. The best performances are once again preceded by an asterisk.

Child Bite: Probably the only mediocre band of the night, Child Bite has all the elements of what could be an interesting band: sloppy and dirty instrumentally and unpolished vocally. Dirtiness is a quality that works in some music (see: We Versus the Shark), but for Child Bite it did little to enhance their sound. Here's hoping they manage to cultivate a sound that works for them in the future.

*Pegasuses-XL: Being a very strange band, I had no idea what to expect from Pegasuses-XL. However, they put on a strong live performance full of unreserved enthusiasm. The set consisted of dual drumming at one point, beatboxing and rapping at another, and instrumental mayhem everywhere else. Most of the members swapped instruments a few times during the show, further displaying their obvious musical propensity. Recent full length The Antiphon highlight "The Big Haunt" made a strong showing, and the band also played some new songs from an upcoming new release.



We Versus the Shark: Gold Sounds favorite We Versus the Shark performed next, and played a few songs from Dirty Versions as well as their recent Radiohead cover and "I Am a Fantastic Battle" from the EP of Bees EP. The band's performance wasn't bad by any stretch, but after seeing them perform several times before, something seemed to be missing. Temporary guitarist Neil Callaghan possesses the chops of recently resigned guitarist Samantha Paulsen, but the chemistry the band had live in the past wasn't as strong this time around. Not that that's Neil's fault; that sort of chemistry is hard to come by, and is only established after a long time of playing as a unit. Hopefully WVTS will grow out of these growing pains and continue their streak of solid releases.



*The Bronzed Chorus: Two-man post-rock that sounds just as full as other like-minded bands with more members. Drummer Brennan O'Brien simultaneously drummed and played keyboard at times and guitarist Adam Joyce made his guitar swell and envelope the room. They created a warm atmosphere the crowd basked in and ingrained themselves into the minds of many an audience member, as seen by the influx of people at their merch table right after they played. The Bronzed Chorus is clearly a band to watch out for in the future.



*So Many Dynamos: For the second night in a row, So Many Dynamos put on the best performance of the night. Again playing a mix of songs old and new, the band played just as tight as the previous night and got the significantly larger crowd dancing. New songs such as "New Bones" and "The Novelty of Haunting" present a new, almost creepy dimension of the band, both with its eerie instrumentals and dark lyrics ("I think your demons need some exercise", "I'll cut the wires that run through your cranium," etc.) that is sure to get them out of the shadow cast upon them by The Dismemberment Plan. Their new album, the Chris Walla-produced The Loud Wars, comes out in February and will definitely be an album to watch out for next year. Even sooner than that, the band will be playing Valentine's in Albany on December 4th with Ra Ra Riot, a show that should not be missed.



I left the show before Ho-Ag went on because it was late. Lame, I know. More to come soon!

Gold Sounds at CMJ: Part 1

So CMJ was this past week, and it was an absolute blast. While seeing 30 live performances, I made sure to write about and take pictures of the various artists I saw throughout the week. With hundreds of bands performing across tons of venues, there were sure to be some surprises and some duds, and indeed there were. With that said, here's the first part of my CMJ coverage, with the best performances preceded by an asterisk.

Tuesday night, The Annex and Don Pedro's: I started my night at The Annex, located in the Lower East Side (the majority of venues in NYC seem to be there). Out of all the venues I went to, I would have to say that this was, by far, the worst. The sound was totally out of whack for all two performances I saw and the audience space was very, very cramped.

Chairlift @ The Annex: Chairlift is a three-piece Brooklyn-based band who play indie pop/rock consisting of synth/guitar/drums. Yes, another one of those. Unfortunately, this band did not have any memorable songs at all; they were all similar in tempo and sound. Their stage presence was pretty static and between songs they only asked for the sound to be fixed. Basically, they took themselves way too seriously and that took all the fun out of their show.

Violens @ The Annex: Violens were one of the bands I really wanted to see at CMJ this year. They've yet to release a full-length, but the songs they have released so far sound great. They sound like The Doors, but with more pleasant vocal harmonies (see: "Violent Sensation Descends"). However, the band suffered a lot of problems during their set, included the aforementioned sound problems and a blown-out amp halfway through their set. As a result, their songs sounded much different than intended and I ended up not enjoying their set at all either. Unlike Chairlift, however, they took the sound woes more in stride and at least tried to make the best of it.

*So Many Dynamos @ Don Pedro's: This show was actually not a CMJ show, but I knew it was going on near where I was staying in Brooklyn and since I got to the Bowery Ballroom for Friendly Fires and Lykke Li way too late, I decided to stop by Don Pedro's on my way back home to check them out. I'm sure glad I did, because Don Pedro's was a much better venue than The Annex and So Many Dynamos put on one of the best shows of the week. Playing half old and half new songs, the dance-rock band were tight the whole way through and even incorporated some interesting transitions; the whole band yelling the lyrics to the outro of "In Every Direction" after the song ended and then going straight into "Progress" was my favorite moment of the show. More on So Many Dynamos to come in future CMJ coverage.