First thing is first about this one...
You better like synth-lines, because these guys are like the Ron Jeremy of that shit, just ramming it into you wherever they can find a hole. The good thing is that after you get used to it, you start to notice how catchy and likable they make it.
Initially, I was concerned that the pop-iness of this stuff would become gratingly uninteresting, and although I don't exactly want to start giving out BJ's in celebration, I was pleasantly surprised.
What we've got here, I suspect, is a dude, or dudes, who listen to waaaay too much post-punk. The whole album is fucking dripping with reverb and I keep thinking, hey this sounds a little like joy division, but less boring. "Candy Cottages", my favorite so far, and apparently the "jam" of the album, makes it apparent that the guitar player has listened to Vampire weekend, and makes use of some jangly dancy lead lines that I liked enough to listen to again.
Song structure is interesting and complex, though at times, songs dangerously teeter towards becoming annoyingly directionless in a very animal collective sort of way. Personally, this pissed me off a lot, but I really hate animal collective.
On a second listen, I am sure that if you like animal collective, you might dig this album.
Although the lyrics seem intent on evading my understanding, I haven't heard anything exceedingly dumb...well, not exceedingly.
So that's my initial reaction.
I'm really not that big of a fan, but I know I can appreciate this album in the way that I appreciate fugazi, which is to say, I can listen to it for a minute and be like, "Yeah they know what they are doing, and they do it well, but they just don't know how to make me listen to it." Fugazi is so important to the music of today, and undeniably valuable, in a literary way, but even though I want to like it, I just don't find myself putting it on.
That's what I've got here.
I'll give it the second listen tomorrow, but for now, I'd give it 2/5.
http://tiptopsecrets.bandcamp.com/
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