It’s the everlasting gobstopper of ear candy yet it also achieves an incredible level of musical narrative. Flying Lotus’ Cosmogramma will send you on a trip.

What Cosmogramma achieves is not easily or often accomplished. The sounds are immediate and explode outwards from the record. One could say Flying Lotus has perfected the art of recording, but to call what Flying Lotus does “recording” is too passive; he’s more of an architect of sound and form. Also, the idea behind a recording is that something was captured onto tape: it implies a source. The sounds are too novel to be such, but still Flying Lotus doesn’t rely on the novelty to capture your attention, the sounds are merely part of the overall idea of the album. It’s an album with a very concrete overall idea– space– which permeates through every aspect of the album: its soundscape and its structure.

Me with my sparkly copy of Cosmogramma outside Chicago's Reckless Records

Regarding the narrative of Cosmogramma, the track “Intro // A Cosmic Drama” is placed four songs into the album, implying a sort of prologue of the first three tracks, which sound like false starts considering their short and choppy nature. Nevertheless these tracks work to the effect of immersing the listener into the universe of Cosmogramma, because let’s face it, Flying Lotus didn’t just make an album, he created a whole new alternate dimension to put it in. The side-chained compression of “Nose Art”, which gives the song its dance floor pulsating feel, is an example of Flying Lotus’ ability as a producer to create otherworldly effects which only add to the total development of the album. FlyLo’s production is not an end in itself but rather an inseparable component of the album’s general aura. If the first three tracks frame the Cosmogramma universe, then the subsequent track, “Intro // A Cosmic Drama”, begins to fill that vacuum and from there forth, the songs just ooze into frame.

A third of the way into Cosmogramma, “Computer Face // Pure Being” hits you in the face. Its fugue-like sonic incline builds until a final collapse and release. Then comes magic– “…And the World Laughs With You”. How appropriate for a cosmic album and quite the “star-studded” collaboration. Thom Yorke’s vocals ask, “I need to know you’re out there/ I need to know you’re listening.” We’re listening, Thom.

At this point, it would be worth mentioning the slightly less prominent but nevertheless ubiquitous (he appears on nearly half the album’s tracks) collaborator, Thundercat, whose basslines move tracks like “Satelllliiiiiitee” and “Dance of the Pseudo Nymph” from sick to uber-fly. These songs are part of the jazz heavy, climactic second half of the album, a standout of which is “Do the Astral Plane” whose percussive drive makes it one of the danciest, grooviest tracks on the album (not to mention I think I hear Buddha laughing on that track).

In the same fashion that the first three tracks introduced the listener to the world of Cosmogramma, the last three tracks return to the album’s namesake mysticism, working off of the previously constructed stellar environment. Cosmogramma is in no way a traditional concept album but rather, it is simply one of the most unifyingly thematically cohesive albums I’ve ever encountered. Forget prosody and don’t even try to atomize; just soak it all in and make way for Flying Lotus, who will likely become the DJ Shadow figure of the 2010′s, at the very least.

This article, brought to you by aphera, comes from our wonderful friend and guest writer, Jillian Favorite.

Forgiveness Rock Record

Personally, there is nothing more quintessential to my coming of age story than Broken Social Scene. Very many firsts throughout my youth were accompanied by the experimental ambient rock of Kevin Drew and the Canadian collective – first sip of jug wine, first joy-ride with my sluts and unfortunately my first cigarette in addition to many others. Thus when I heard that BSS was coming out with a new album this spring, I immediately thought of their self titled album (Broken Social Scene/Windsurfing Nation) and You Forgot It in People, two of my all time favorite albums.

But to be quite honest, my joy was quickly followed by doubt.  What else can they really do? They pretty much have labeled themselves as instrumentalists – and nothing else. Can you add more instruments to instruments? Well like always, I was wrong; vocals can be added as instruments as well.

listen here:

The vocals stand out immensely in Forgiveness Rock Record. In the opening track, “World Sick”, Kevin Drew hints at where the band came from with its previous albums with an opening guitar solo followed by his message “my love is for the man”—it almost has a “Cause = Time” (You Forgot It in People) and “7/4 (Shoreline)” (BSS) feel. Tracks like “All to All” and “Sentimental X’s” present female vocalists Emily Haines, Leslie Feist and Amy Millan, whose cooing puts listeners in a world of whimsy. And lastly, the track titled “Sweetest Kill” makes me melt as Drew’s voice drips with seductiveness all the while juxtaposed with a swaying tempo.

In addition to mature vocals, the Canadians have done it with a collection of well produced tracks. This can be attributed to dropping David Newfield as a producer and moving onto John McEntire. But let’s be honest, producers can’t do everything. The group has incredible instrumentals, but the layering has cleaned up beautifully. Instead of noisy chaos, the band has made every instrument count. No longer is the reaction to the music, “this piece could use more of this, or less of that,” but for once “everything fits right into place.”

It is as though when I was listening to Broken Social Scene growing up, they were growing up as a group also. Forgiveness Rock Record shows a lot of maturity that the group hasn’t shown before—the producing, the layering and especially the vocals, and I’m happy to say that they’re still going to be a part of my journey that is life. Give it a listen. As I’m starting anew in my life and becoming a big kid (maybe?) these guys will surely accompany me.

It’s like MGMT had to appease us with “Kids” in order for us to take Congratulations seriously. After all, Oracular Spectacular had us loving and respecting MGMT to the max. They knew we’d at least give Congratulations a listen… and they were hoping that some of us would see it for the masterpiece that it is. Unfortunately, most of us haven’t developed enough sophistication to fully appreciate Congratulations.

I learned my senior year of high school that some good music requires extreme sophistication. At the time, I was dating this guy who was the lead singer of a classic rock band, an accomplished guitarist, and a world renowned fiddler. He was giving me a ride home from school and put Bob Dylan on for the ride. I cringed and said,  “Uh, I really don’t like him.” He looked at me, shocked, and probably wondering how he could continue hanging out with me and responded, “Well, he’s just too sophisticated for you.”

As a classical pianist, I was extremely offended at the time, but he was absolutely right. And as my sophistication grew so did my appreciation for Dylan.

MGMT’s Congratulations requires that same sophistication because they are giving us Dylan. MGMT is giving us Prokofiev’s Second Concerto. This stuff requires an acquired taste, sophistication and appreciation. There is no room for instant gratification.

Congratulations is dense. It gives your ear too much to grasp the first, second or third time through. It’s the polar opposite of Broken Bells. Danger Mouse gives you what you want to hear without any substance. MGMT gives you substance – oh, they give you too much to chew! Take the first song, “It’s Working”. It begins with a little riff that turns into a verse characterized by quick chord changes, spontaneous drumming, and then a pause… all within the first minute. Then a B section within the second minute, another pause… Something resembling a chorus is introduced in the third minute but then you get a complete tempo change as soon as the chorus ends! MGMT, you’re giving us a lot to digest. And “It’s Working” is a snack compared to “Siberian Breaks.”

But after listening to Congratulations many times, getting a chance to grasp some themes and melodies, dare I say, “it’s incredible.” Dare I say that the multi-part, “Siberian Breaks” is reminiscent of “Paranoid Android”, sometimes compared to “A Day in the Life”. Am I going too far? I don’t think so.

Some would fault MGMT for the density – but I’m not going to. There is a difference between over the top and dense. Over the top is like Rachmaninoff’s First Concerto – you listen and just wonder if all of it’s really necessary. Dense is like Prokofiev’s Second Concerto, you need every part of it, and on every listen you hear more and more of it and it becomes better and better. That’s MGMT’s Congratulations.

I think MGMT was dying to showcase their full potential – I think they suffered through the people friendly Oracular Spectacular so that they could bring us the more obscure Congratulations. They really poured everything they could into this album. They did not hold back – and why should they? They already proved to us that they can write hit singles like “Electric Feel”. Now they’re moving forward – they’re just hoping we can stay on their level. Hey, it took two reviews but I’m there.

Last time I was home we set up an old WWII-era projector to watch the 16mm reel of a film my mother made during her days in film school. Due to having misplaced the reels for quite a while and a lack of necessary equipment and perhaps chagrin from quitting her profession in film production, she hadn’t watched her films in 21 years. Thus, it was our first time seeing her hidden artistry.

It was also my first experience with the kind of equipment it took to play a film made in the late seventies.  It took nearly an hour for my dad to set up the reel – first it was backwards, then it started going in reverse. We didn’t attempt to pair the audio with the video because it was distributed over four different reels that were meant to be perfectly synced with each other and with the film but we didn’t even have one tape player! Yikes, how did anyone do anything back then?

Anyway, we got the movie playing and black and white images flashed onto the suspended projection screen before us. The movie was about a personal apocalypse and as the character spiraled downward the rate of the cuts increased and scenes whirred in front of our eyes to create an effect of tension. Cuts are edits where the film has been manually cut and taped back together so as the movie climaxed it began to jump off the track because the tape used to hold the cuts together was old and stiff and deteriorating. I guess one of the tricks to help guide the film is for someone to guide the film with his or her finger as it’s passing through the projector. This was George’s job; every time the film jumped and started to get out of sync the image would move around on the screen until George corrected the movement of the film and it returned to normal. It was just as stressful to watch George holding the film steady as it was to watch the main character’s eventual identity apocalypse. Finally, at one point, as George was struggling, the film tore completely (not to worry, this was remedied with fresh editing tape).

The reason I described this is because LCD’s song, “All I want,” has the same effect. It begins with a steady drum beat, then the guitar comes in with a slow melody while underneath there is a quicker keyboard meandering.  Finally, layered on top is the complementary vocal melody followed later by a completely independent synth. As the song progresses these components begin to fall apart like different parts of a machine; or one melody seems to get off track kind of like the film and then it would resume its normal pattern as if someone was holding it back from skipping completely. Just as you think the song is going to ‘rip’ it jumps right back onto its track. At the end, there is no taming every component and as James Murphy sings “take me home” the machine has completely broken and even the steady, simple drum beat is gone.

The incredible thing about this album is that every song on the album was constructed as meticulously as “All I want,” yet somehow it manages to sound like an effortless disarray of sounds. I imagine that each piece is a taming of wild noises. It’s like Murphy is conducting an out of control orchestra and somehow produces a symphony. For those of you who have seen Howl’s Moving Castle, think of Howl’s castle and how every disjoint component seems like it’s going to collapse or roll away, yet each gear, leg and door contributes to how the entire castle can gracefully move.

P.S. the lyrics in the title of this post are from the song, “Drunk Girls”. Great song with spot on lyrics.

Some metal band playing at Reckless Records. Note the 7-Eleven across the street where I got a Slurpee.

Yesterday was Record Store Day and in honor of it I biked to Reckless Records, a cool record shop in the loop, to check out the scene. I was surprised to see a live metal band playing in the tiny store. It was great fun but I didn’t end up buying anything. Anyway, two new Record Store Day releases that stuck out to me as prominent were a 12″ from Beach House and a new new new new song from Blur! Wow, how many years has it been? Anyway, here’s what I have to say about the releases: the Blur song is excellent and it almost seems like a part of a bigger picture and I would die to get a Blur release this year. Graham Coxon’s guitar throughout, and especially at the end, reminds me of why I care.

The Beach House track, meh… It sounds like a Teen Dream outtake, which it probably is but if you haven’t had enough Beach House then go for it but I wouldn’t have spent money on the footlong (12″ release) if had been able to find it in any of the record stores I went to yesterday. I went to two by the way. The second one was this cute store closer to campus that I walked into on my way to dinner at Ribs n’ Bibs. Dinner at Ribs n’ Bibs was great though. I had a “Bronco Burger” with fries and slaw for three dollars. What a steal!

Beach House – The Arrangementbysubpop

Oh, by the way, download the Blur song here and you can listen to a high quality version on our player.

I can’t decide whether what they did was genius or borderline suicidal. Genius: I guarantee they will not be nominated for a Grammy after this spectacle – they basically said, FU, whatever, whatever, we do what we want. So the novelty of MGMT is still there. Hell, they’re rebels now. Borderline Suicidal: I bet you clicked through the songs waiting for the next “Kids,” or even something resembling “Weekend Wars.” And by the time you got to “Lady Dada’s Nightmare,” you were like, “wait.. seriously?” And you finished sampling the songs all disappointed, turned away from the album forever.

The problem is not that MGMT set the expectations too high, it’s just we weren’t expecting what we ended up getting. It’s like biting into a lemon, expecting sour, and getting sweet. Your reaction is, “wait, there must be something wrong with that lemon,” when in fact it’s not a lemon at all.

I suggest you take a second listen to the album. It’s actually kind of cool. Tons of layering, dissonances and quick changes. I think if it hadn’t leaked during the snowy doldrums we would have received it more welcomingly. Now, with the warm weather and sun shining, Congratulations sounds like something you’d want to jam out on the porch to in the company of your facial-haired hipster friends.

This review was going to be about how a half-hearted album deserves a half-hearted review. And I was going to ask you to review it in your comments. I no longer think the album was half-hearted – just risky.

Anyway, I’m still interested to know whether anyone still hates it even after a second chance. Or if someone absolutely loved it the first time through.

Give It A Second Chance?

My sunroof was open,

the 75 degree spring air was circulating through my car, and I was listening to Morning Benders, Big Echo for the first time, thinking about how it would make great summer music and that I would have to post about it later. In fact, by the end of the first song, it was decided – this is exhilarating, amazing! By the sixth song, I was in love and wondering how I had become so infatuated so quickly – I’m usually unfairly critical on first listen! And on that sixth song, ‘Hand Me Downs,’ it hit me; I was so convinced that I was in love because I was listening to my beloved, number one rated, Grizzly Bear!

Not literally, but seriously, the same delayed, distorted, guitar, and that distinct (is it syncopated?) beat. All those elements were there in ‘Hand Me Downs’, and I’d never heard that specific sound and combination anywhere except in Grizzly Bear. As when in love, you write off weaknesses quickly – I wasn’t going to start denying that Big Echo was perfect just because one song was a Grizzly Bear tribute! I thought back to the first song with its climactic opening, 50s bop in the background, and thought, yes, that was unique, nothing like Da Griz, as George calls them.

I played the album a second time through a few hours later on my flight to Seattle. Worn out after reading War and Peace, and studying for Human Sexual Orientation (yes, these are my hilarious last semester senior year classes), I focused all my attention on listening to music for a while. But when I got to only the second song of Big Echo, again, I heard Grizzly Bear! In fact, this time I specifically heard ‘Cheerleader’ – that syncopation, and guitar sound!

What I failed to realize, but found out a few hours later, was that the connection between the Morning Benders and Grizzly Bear was not all in my head. In fact, Grizzly Bear bassist and producer, Chris Taylor, actually produced Morning Bender’s new album. So my point is not to rip on Morning Benders (I am still devoted to their album), but, to comment on producers and their ability to influence music.

Take Broken Bells for example – a collaboration between producer, Danger Mouse, and Shin’s front man, James Mercer. I mean, Danger Mouse produced the album flawlessly. He took risks, strived for perfection, and made something that sounds full and good. But, I’m just lost, what is it that he produced? Sure, James Mercer’s voice is sultry and hott, but there is no other substance. I really find it incredible that there is a material album at all! The songs are literally overproduced chord progressions (if that!) that carousel round and round until the song finishes. The album stands on nothing, but I’m telling you it tricks you into thinking it sounds good!

Then take, Damon Albarn’s Demon Days versus the new Plastic Beach.  I’m a huge fan of Demon Days. I mean it’s Gorillaz so of course there is clever composition and furthermore, Demon Days was produced by the meticulous Danger Mouse. Again, I’m not going to deny that songs such as ‘Feel Good, Inc.’ and ‘DARE’ showcase Danger Mouse’s incredible handy work. But when compared to Plastic Beach, I have to wonder whether Danger Mouse’s influence may have been limiting and stifling what Albarn already had going on. I wonder this because Plastic Beach has all the nuances, creativity, and dynamics that Demon Days doesn’t. Guess who produced Plastic Beach? Damon Albarn himself.

So what’s the ideal combination? I’m going to argue that it’s not pairing Danger Mouse with an already incredible artist. I feel like, it’s instead the Grizzly Bear combination, where the producer is literally part of the band. A similar case occurs in Radiohead, the elusive 6^th member of the band, Nigel Godrich, is as much their producer as he is part of Radiohead. In fact, Thom Yorke officially made Nigel part of his new ‘Thom Yorke’ posse.

I’m also going to take this opportunity to say, MGMT, get a new producer, step it up, you were a disappointment this year.

…And who? the Broken Bells!

Last weekend, a couple my friends and I went to Lancaster, PA to see a show at the Chameleon. The headliner was Man Man. Who or what is Man Man, you might ask? In the words of my friend Tyler, “They’re… um… life changing. You have to hear them to understand.” Prepare for your life to be changed (apologies for the quality):

That’s “Hurly Burly,” the second track of Rabbit Habbits (2008). It might take a bit to process that, so I’ll let you replay it a few more times.

Okay, now that you’ve digested that, you can begin to understand that which still has me in shock and awe. I’d like to call this “circus rock” – the carnival-esque dissonance of circus music combined with the energy of rock music. Truly, this is insanity. Now imagine all of these instruments actually being played live, in front of a crazy club crowd as mad as the band. My response was simply: Wow. My jaw is still hanging loose! Needless to say, I stopped by the merch table and picked up a copy of Rabbit Habbits, and have listened to it all the way through three times in the past two days.

Cover to the Broken Bells "High Road" single. Their artwork is weird (George thinks).

As you can tell by the latest blog posts, Gorillaz have been up to something big, with their latest album Plastic Beach taking the world (or at least this blog!) by storm. However, overshadowed by that (and yet still worth some recognition) is Broken Bells’ self-titled debut. Broken Bells is the collaboration of Danger Mouse (think Gnarls Barkley) and the Shins front man James Mercer and acts as a sort of fusion of the two. As Rick says in Casablanca, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” the same seems true here. However, keep in mind that this is the beginning. A few things still need to be worked out.

“The High Road,” being the first single off of the album, is obviously fairly catchy – it provides a nifty drum beat couple with guitar reminiscent of Oasis’ “Wonderwall,” yet melodically is totally different (and seriously, much better). Still, it’s a pretty standard single; nothing is terribly innovative or experimental about it, but it is very catchy and an interesting combination of artists.

Highlights for me were “Your Head is on Fire,” which sounds sort of like Fleet Foxes meets the Shins, and “The Ghost Inside,” a more electronic song that ends up being very dance-able. “October” sounds like a younger brother (admittedly a cooler younger brother) to “The High Road,” which was already pretty cool to begin with. If I could have picked the single, it probably would have been one of these three.

Despite all this awesomeness, a constant problem pervades the album: the lack of drum presence. George has noted, forever cursing anything I listen to by Danger Mouse (and now forever cursing you as well), that all of Brian Burton’s drum beats are flat. This is true even here, with the exception on the album (aside from the songs lacking drums) being “Mongrel Heart,” which brings the electronic and Westerns (yes the film genre) together. Even so, the soulless drums can be relatively ignored, and the album has definitely more than piqued my interest.

Verdict: very poppy, worth listening to, but don’t go out and spend $30 on a vinyl; the CD should do if you need to buy it.

Tom Roher is an excellent friend of the Aphera Team, specifically George though I don’t think Larissa has anything against him.

It started out as a nice day today so I was going to bike to the record store downtown that I like so that I could buy Plastic Beach but it started raining. So much for that… I’ve already heard the album about 40 times and I have a very good idea in my head of what I think about the music anyway. Unfortunately most of what I think is really hard to translate into words. Call me a bad writer, but I prefer the label of a good listener. This album is so hard to write about because it’s so vastly different from most of the music that has preceded it. In fact, even the reputation of the Gorillaz seems to precede this album. Upon reading several reviews where the writer was hung up on the fact that a cartoon band was behind the music, I seem to think Damon Albarn, the man behind the Gorillaz, might have lost some people on this one… but I don’t know where I was going with that idea (okay, maybe “bad writer” is the best way to describe me).

My hands are empty because I failed to actually buy this album today. Thursday though, I'll do it then! (Does he have weird thumbs?)

Well enough of that let’s talk about the music: this album has one of the strongest openings to an album I’ve ever heard. It rivals the opening to Radiohead’s Kid A in its sublimity and UNKLE’s Psyence Fiction in its self-absorbed and “rapped on top of” nature. Psyence Fiction was a trip hop album with which this album has many similarities. First of all, they share a collaborative lineup that is comparable in its talent, breadth, and magnitude. Also, they were created by one man with a vision. Sorry for digressing again—back to the intro: emerging from an impressionistic orchestral opening that foreshadows the grandeur of the rest of the album is a slow walking pace simple beat. It grows in complexity, finally dismissing the traditional four bar phrases to which we are extremely accustomed as to throw us off and effectively push us over the edge and into a full blown rap track. In total, the second track is a contrast of stoicism and hip hop sumptuousness. Snoop’s voice is powerful but not in the usual way you’d expect a rapper’s voice to be powerful; Snoop has a power that lies in his irony: we hear Snoop inviting us, “Welcome to the world of the plastic beach,” in his normal tone of indifference which is in stark contrast to the epic buildup of the preceding orchestral intro.

What follows, “White Flag”, seems at first to be quite the novelty. It’s a clever and artful interplay of, not only two very skilled rappers, but of their rapping and the orchestra. Though foreign in many ways, this song proves to exemplify the crazy changes Damon has made in his style and modus operandi. If you would, let me explain the something about the quantum leap that occurred in Damon’s songwriting and production: there’s a difference between those who try to mimick and use a particular type of sound as a vehicle for the song and those who embody that sound in an inseparable unit that makes a perfect song. It’s the difference between Beck’s disco parody, Midnite Vulture, and Hercules and Love Affair’s self titled new wave disco album. All throughout Damon’s career, he had been striving to get that certain sound; overblown examples include the attempt at a soul sound in the closing medley of Demon Days, “Don’t Get Lost In Heaven”/“Demon Days” and to draw from his history with Blur, most of Blur’s early albums were attempts to embody the much earlier styles of the British Invasion. Most of the time Damon hardly got the exact sound he wanted and despite the fact that this is usually evident, the result is still something extremely enjoyable as being original in its own right. However, Damon must had done some real soul searching in the process of making Plastic Beach because this album is neither hit n’ miss nor is it the product of some accidental genius; it is not a pastiche. This is real greatness.

Aphera’s one-month anniversary fell on a good week; here in Baltimore we are celebrating restaurant week (mmm) and the release of Beach House’s new highly rated album, Teen Dream (represent!). The thing is, I do not say ‘highly rated’ lightly. Pitchfork gave Beach House a coveted 9 rating. Not that I think this album isn’t good, it’s just I can’t reconcile the discrepancy between Beach House = 9 while just a few days ago, my other band of the moment, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, was tanked at a 4.1

From Below

And worse yet, the description as to why the Magnetic Zeros deserved such a low score had something to do with the fact that they weren’t as good as the ‘real thing.’ I guess kind of like store brand cola is never as good as real Coca-Cola? Except the reviewer, Paul Thompson, used ‘Fruitopia’ as the object in the analogy. And since Fruitopia was introduced in 1994 when I was age 6 – I have no idea what it is. So when Thompson begins his article with ‘Remember Fruitopia?’ My answer is, no, actually I don’t.  Therefore, I really can’t use your damn analogy to help me better understand why you tanked the Magnetic Zeros at 4.1 points.

So I scanned the rest of his article for some substance. Honest to god, the next best thing I found was, ‘But the admirably far-reaching results nevertheless come up short.’ Thompson, I’m genuinely interested in why the Magnetic Zeros come up short enough to be tanked at a 4.1 – your ridiculously long, adjective heavy, analogy reeking article was not even close to being sufficient enough to provide the answer and Beach House’s 9 rating did not help explain the situation either.

Teen Dream (the cover is there, look at your screen from an angle to see it)

My personal opinion – Beach House’s Teen Dream is a smooth, coherent album. It begins beautifully with what sounds like a theme and expands elegantly in the middle to what resembles a development with songs like ‘Love of Mine’. I guess I would call it an album in sonata form (this is a stretch). But then at the end it comes to a nice recap just like the end of a classical piece. This natural inverted U shape indicating a climax in the middle and then a rest at the end makes the album a pleasant listen. Additionally, Victoria Legrand’s voice is award winning, sophisticated and ripe. Seriously, more little white people need to sound like big black women. Yet, even with all this, I feel like the 9 score should be reserved for something groundbreaking and this album, as concise as it is, is not groundbreaking. In fact, it kind of reminds me of the 80s and what doesn’t these days?!

Anyway – I feel like Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, in all honesty, may not have displayed as much quality as Beach House did. So I’m not implying that they deserve a high score – but a 4.1? Listen to a song like ’40 Day Dream’. It’s unique and well crafted. A lot of complaints came from reviewers who said that the Magnetic Zeros just didn’t match up to the hippie stuff that came out of the 60s. One reviewer said that a lot of bands are doing what the Zeros do better these days. But he failed to pinpoint which ones. So, since I haven’t been an avid listener of that hippie stuff from either back in the day or from today, the Magnetic Zeros sound fresh to me and, of course, kind of sarcastic at times with songs like ‘Home.’ Don’t make the mistake of confusing their sarcasm for artificiality. Because – I think if you don’t take these guys too seriously, (and why would you?) you realize they actually produced an enjoyable and quality album.