[rayword45]

Day 453: Virtue by The Voidz (Album Choice: Gravity Kitten)

Truthfully, I think I have heard about three or four Strokes songs, and two of those were songs I was forced to cover for a band. This isn't caused by any disdain for the band or any of its members. As a matter of fact, this isn't caused by any emotion. I just don't care enough to check out The Strokes, and if I ever do I've gotta work up that care. So for a first album from Julian, perhaps this is a bit weird, but whatever. At least I don't have any expectations whatsoever, that's gotta count for something, right?

This first song is dividing me internally. It's catchy, the textures are great, and I fucking love that brief breakdown of broken chords. I don't have any actual complaints about this song, but it's not something that rings with me on an emotional level. In fact, it seems kinda sterile, like "we're cool, aloof and indie" sterile. That's the reason I hate bands like Vampire Weekend. Also, the autotune is unnecessary.

The general "weird out" vibe they seem to be going for is one that probably wouldn't hit me the way they intended regardless of anything, seeing how I'm guessing my taste in weird is far more esoteric than their average fan. This liberal autotune and general vocoding that seems to be a large basis for the album's atmosphere is really only bringing this album down. I'm willing to bet I'd enjoy this a lot more if the vocals were simply rawer, since strained performances and wild performances are two of my favorite kinds of singing. Outside of that, this is baby's first bizarre, with any actual moments of oddity only lasting a few seconds at best only to be brought back around to the riffs.

Speaking of the riffs, the heavy metal-aping Pyramids of Bones was probably the first track I legitimately enjoyed. The guitar is simplistic and, again, the weird-for-weirdness-sake shit really doesn't add anything, but fuck it this one is catchy in a hypnotic way. The duo of songs immediately following keep the hypnotic and the "we're better and more enjoyable than the first two tracks" while completely stripping away all traces of metal, leaving some groovy, sauntering jams that leave you in a trance. This is good stuff, especially the unfortunately-titled multitrack crooner ALieNNatioN. I guessed the capitalization the first time I typed that out and got it wrong, proving just how bad this title is Jesus Christ dude what the fuck were you thinking?

For someone who spent so much time shitting on the first 5 minutes of this album, I seem to be enjoying it so far. All Wordz Are Made Up is the first time in a while I'm completely unimpressed by a track, since it seems to want to dial up the weird yet again to nobody's benefit and generally just sounds like a shitty Talking Heads wannabe. Hey, it seems like all the tracks I don't like so far are the singles minus the one I mentioned liking. What radio stations play this shit?

...And nevermind (oh yeah, I'm spelling it like that, SUCK IT) what I just said about singles, this acoustic track is fucking terrible. No wonder this guy kept most of his album aseptic as fuck, THIS is what he sounds like emoting? Hell no.

Okay, now we're back to the fun stuff. Wink brings back that slow mesmerizing atmosphere while maintaining its own unique, bouncy sensibility. My Friend The Walls is perhaps the first time the weirdness feels less than forced to me. It's not one of the better tracks on this album, it's really rather middling, but that fact alone gives me an immense respect for it.

This is my least favorite kind of review, the "let's talk about nearly every track yet somehow have it be holistic" kind. Thus I'm stopping myself short and gonna stop typing here until I'm finished with the album.

And now that I am finished, I'm not sure if I wanna revisit this album as a whole or just the tracks I like. This is pretty middle of the road for me. The songs I like I really do enjoy, but this thing is hit-or-miss as fuck, which is basically a guarantee when you go for a genre blender approach like the one here. For such an eclectic approach, however, it's pretty easy to break this up into what I do and don't like. The slow songs are easily the best here, especially, to mention one more song by name, the song that I said "especially" for before. And especially dirge-y closer Pointlessness, which may very well be my favorite track. Outside of that, the second most common kind of song here is noise rock slop, which together are equally as hit-or-miss as the album as a whole. Then you have the tracks either trying to be weird for weird's sake (but not really being THAT weird), or being "different" like that shitty acoustic song. Fuck those songs.

And fuck finals.

Best Track: I mentioned two different tracks as serious highlights, and I can't pick either one. I'm amazed that the singles make up my two favorite tracks and three of my least favorite tracks.
Rating: 6/10