2006 October | one times one
opinions were like kittens i was giving them away. -modest mouse
there's nothing as something as one. -e. e. cummings

OTO Rating: 5/10       I’ve rewritten this review countless times, but no matter how often I do, I can’t seem to avoid centering it around the standard so-and-so sounds like so-and-so meets so-and-so template. They say it’s a sign of weakness; the last refuge of the poor, uninspired record reviewer. And how can you argue [...]

OTO Rating: 6/10       The Walkmen, like the Brian Jonestown Massacre, have becoming famous for not becoming famous. They’ve put out two albums of competent garage-pop, one brilliant single (“The Rat”), and if you mentioned them to the man on the street he’d probably tell you to get an ipod. So it’s only natural for [...]

OTO Rating: 4/10 Track listing: 01 Futures 02 Throw It All Away 03 Seeing Things 04 The Pageant Of The Bizarre 05 You’re My Flame 06 Left Behind 07 Today 08 This Fine Social Scene 09 Your Place 10 If I Can’t Have You 11 Crosses 12 Waiting To Die The much maligned Zero 7 [...]

OTO Rating: 8/10       Country music is generally associated with straightforward, honest talk and humble stories of woe. So, naturally, Shelley Short decides to buck the trend once again with this, her sophomore album after 2003’s Say Little Dogies, Why?. And it couldn’t be further from a slump. Instead Captain Wild Horse is an eerie, [...]

OTO Rating: 8/10       The Panda Band, a clump of Australians towing a jagged procession of musical linearity, seem to know nothing of the word “reservation.” Their songs wail with feverish abandon and trample over sonic expectations like a monster truck in a china shop. It is this type of charge that leads their fearless debut, [...]