New Review Notes! I Sorta Liked This One!

-ambient intro sorta sounds like broken social scene

-…or flaming lips, because this second song sounds like something from the Soft Bulletin; less lush sounding than the Soft Bulletin; vocals are definitely a little flaming lips, but yknow, not as good. Even the Flaming Lips realized they didn’t need to sound like this anymore. It’s not terrible, but this is seriously just like a song from the Soft Bulletin. Grandiose? I mean, that’s what they’re going for. With the strings and the horns and all. Hey! Take this song seriously, it’s got a military style drum beat and horns and strings people! Not bad, I can’t really hate on this too hard.

-OH NOOOOO! VOCODERS! ROBOT ROCK, Y’ALL! Lyric about Hovercars, refers to a woman as an “IBM.” Yikes. Guess what? This song is about THE FUTURE! It’s pretty catchy. It’s so dumb, though. The chorus is pretty fun; no vocoder on that. Man, tough call on that one.

-This is nice, a little BSS-y again. I don’t know how you go from singing about robot women and hovercars to this. That was pretty nice. This band has not impressed me, but they haven’t done anything to make me hate them. Vocoder song came close, though. But maybe not!

-Again, not bad. A little folky now, maybe? Horn arrangements are back. Banjo, too, I think. This sounds like something off of a Bright Eyes album, only without any of the lyrical handwringing. Totally like something off of Lifted but completely devoid of any emotional sentiment, for better or worse. They still sort of sound like the Flaming Lips.

-eh, interlude track. Oh hey, here’s a song we didn’t feel like finishing so we’re gonna make it sound like it’s being played through a tin can underwater and only be a minute long. I’m on to you guys.

-Alt Country-y ballad. “Here’s a Star”. This is adequate. Whole album, really. Would I ever listen to this again? If this band were playing a free show or opening for someone else, they’d be the kind of band that makes you think, “hey, these guys are decent, I should check out some of their other stuff sometime”…and then you never do.

-Back to the Flaming Lips well, I think. I don’t get these guys—they’re doing all of this stuff marginally well, and they aren’t some young band who hasn’t figured out where they’re going yet, they’re pros. DO SOMETHING NEW GUYS, EVERYONE HAS HEARD THIS STUFF BEFORE.

-These songs are all running together. This is frustrating in its mediocrity. If I weren’t paying attention on it for the purposes of the review, it would just blend into the background. There’s a compliment in there somewhere. Put it this way: if someone put this album on while I was doing the dishes, I wouldn’t ask them to turn it off.

-this is different. Well, it’s different for them. This is a krautrock song. Hey, I like krautrock. This is pretty rockin’; I’d listen to this song. Nah, I’d just put on Neu instead. At the very least, this song engages you. If I were doing the dishes and this song came on, I’d stop ask who it’s by. “Rules of Disengagement.”

-Ugh, this song again. There are basically 3 songs on this record; the robot voice song, the krautrock song, and the other one(s). HEY DID I MENTION SOMETIMES THEY SOUND LIKE A LESS INTERESTING FLAMING LIPS, CUZ THEY DO!

-This album is a 5 all the way. Middle of the mofuckin’ Road, man. This song is good. “Resignation Studies.” I really like this song. That’s why this album is a 5—some songs are good, some songs are forgettable; nothing sounds new, but nothing sounds terrible. Losing me with the sleigh bells here, guys. Eh, whatever, that was good.

-Finishing strong here. Bigtime BSS vibe here, they’re doing that anthemic horns and “la la las” thing that BSS always does. It’s working for them. Pushing their way towards a very serviceable 6 or so (and so could you, ladies! eh, sorry everyone). PIANO BUILDUP! I LOVE THE PIANO BUILDUP! Aww, no dice. Whatever, that was good too.

-Hey, it’s over. Not bad; I count 3 or 4 songs I wouldn’t mind listening to again. Nothing earth shattering; perhaps the definition of average. Hey, the first song sounds like the big anthemic second to last song! Continuity!

-There’s a bonus disc with some remixes and covers (ELO and Alicia Keys, of all people) Neon Indian remixes “Here’s a star” and I love Neon Indian but, like, why? It sounds like a Neon Indian song, but not as good. There’s nothing about “Here’s a Star” that needs a chillwave remix. Here’s an idea, if you want to make a song that sounds like it came out in 2009, try writing one next time.

I'm writing reviews elsewhere now, here are my notes.

I'm going to review some albums for Prefix--yeah, I don't know what that is either--but I'm going to try and do records that I'd never listen to anyway. Here are some notes I made while listening to Hearts by Awesome New Republic. Guess how awesome they are. Go ahead.

Hint: they're less awesome than the name may lead you to believe!

-An overly polished Hot Chip with lyrics that are too cliché to actually be earnest.

-Vocals ranging from mediocre faux-prince falsetto to something you’d hear on an 80’s soft rock station

-Waaaaay too many vocals. Bigtime 80’s/electrohouse thing going on here.

-This is really bad; it’s the vocals. This would be serviceable in the hands of some Swedish Balearic pop dudes, but these guys are seriously out of their element. This guy has the least cool voice I’ve ever heard. It’s proficient in the way the dude’s voice from King of Leon is; it is so out of place here. I can’t believe I’m thinking it, but I want him to sound more detached and ironic.

-This is so by the numbers. These are not good dance songs. These are not good songs.

-If this is meant to be a joke, it’s even worse than if they’re serious. There is some seriously uninspired proficiency at work here. It’s like when commercials can’t afford song rights so they hire some songwriter to do similar genre stuff.

-Oh no. Acoustic guitar. This is probably going to turn mid tempo dancey soon. These guys make MGMT look like the beatles. This is the best song so far, I think? Track 5. It would be Cut Copy’s worst song. Falsetto works much better than his “soft” voice.

-Uh oh, soft voice again. Whoa, these guys are really bad. Of course they’re from Florida. I almost forgot these guys are called “Awesome New Republic.” What the fuck did I expect? This is MGMT for the mentally handicapped. “I feel like Darth Vader inside?” Oh my god. They said it again. I think it’s the chorus. No no no no no. Now I feel like Darth Vader inside. Thanks, Awesome New Republic.

-I like this beepy thing, it’s the most pleasing sound in this song. Consider the bar lowered.

-Ooooh! Club track! Electro-saw-synth thingy. Falsetto! This song might just be inoffensive enough to work! I don’t even know how to evaluate this record anymore. I’d probably feel really embarrassed to be listening to this around other people, but in the context of this record, it’s pretty good. This should be playing over the credits of an 80’s movie. I don’t even know if this is good or not, but it’s not horrible like the rest of this album. “Deep Love”, track 8.

-DANCE PUNK ALERT!! Is that a saxophone? This song is pretty goofy. AHHH dance punk thing again, it’s really not working for them. This is the worst Franz Ferdinand song ever.

-Weird Al. That’s what the guy sounds like when he’s singing in his normal voice. Not nasally jokey weird Al, but like, serious singing Weird Al. He probably doesn’t sound anything like him, but something like that. UGHHHHH. EXTENDED METAPHOR ABOUT BIKES FOR THE WHOLE SONG!? THIS SONG IS ABOUT SEX TOO. I HATE MUSIC NOW.

-Ooooh title track/album closer. Let’s do this shit, Awesome New Republic; let’s get motherfucking serious. Good, start off boring…now build it up for me! Really wow me with this one, I know you’ve got it in you. Sad montage music for a crappy movie? Check. This album is everything bad about the last 5 years of crossover hipster dance pop. Really, that’s it? That’s your big finish? You guys suck. Go back to Florida.

-Well, it’s a short 35 minutes. So, uh, awesome.