Pitchfork's take on Chief's new album, Modern Rituals:"The transcontinental breadth of the band's influences keeps Chief from coming across as pallid piggybackers of any one scene, but for a group that hasn't yet demonstrated an ability to nail down a particular sound, keeping so many balls in the air could be stretching its talents too thin. Perhaps that explains why Chief are rarely better than competent at anything they try to do here." -Joshua Love
Paste's take on Chief's new album, Modern Rituals:
"The members of Chief have great pipes and each song on their debut LP Modern Rituals is centered on a soaring explosion of vocal euphony that could melt the heart of even the most jaded music fan. [...] with the power of their harmony and a few well-arranged standout tracks, Chief have managed to assemble a respectable record, and escape being written off as yet another batch of copycat folkies." -Luke Winkie
I find it mildly funny that Winkie thinks Modern Rituals could melt the heart of "even the most jaded music fan" because he must think Joshua Love is a strange man hanging to a thin piece of earth, dangling into the clutches of hell.
I mean, the contrast in writing here is a jump between intelligent pretentiousness and slightly fluffy fanboyish praise. I definitely enjoy reading praise more than rejection, but then again, I understand that we need to filter the crap out of the music released today (as Pitchfork handily does) to know what's worth our time, and what's just... not.
Guess we'd better just judge for ourselves.
Reading Pitchfork to know what's worth our time? Really? They're more wrong than right...
ReplyDeletehey anon - i totally agree with you. i was referring to music criticism in general as a way to filter what to listen to. there are so many albums that come out every week, and there just isn't time to listen to them all. for me it's similar to reading movie reviews (and sometimes taking them with a grain of salt), in that i'm going to see something anyway, even if a critic pans it. but sometimes i'm on the line, and somebody else's opinion has to suffice. there's not enough time to listen to everything, and pitchfork is very picky about what it "approves of" and doesn't. it gives you a select list of albums worth some consideration, and that paring down (i think) can be helpful at times.
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