Sylvain Chauveau & Ensemble Nocturne – Down to the Bone 3.2

              Full disclosure: I’m a Depeche Mode fan. So listening to these allegedly smartened up arrangements bothered me on multiple levels. Depeche Mode is generally a fun listen; they have a good sense of humor about themselves and their music. You can understand their songs in a few different ways, either as serious or silly, depending on your mood.

                ‘Down to the Bone’ runs into a problem I have with so many other covers of more popular bands: they remove the joy and fun of the original. Perhaps I’d have less of a problem with this if the arrangements were better, or the choice of the instruments showed taste, like Sun Kil Moon’s covers of Modest Mouse. While Sun Kil Moon might have had a similar bleak approach to the music, their attempt had a whole lot less pretention and a bit more liveliness. 

                What makes this annoying is how similar each arrangement sounds to each other. Even as an electronic band, Depeche Mode has a greater range of sound than these recording would let you believe. “Policy of Truth” literally made me cringe with the choice of vibraphone, which sounds absolutely flat. There’s the vocalist too, who adds more drama then what a casual listener would responsibly expect. Listening to him on “Never Let Me Down Again” sounds like a eulogy for Depeche Mode delivered by someone about to fall asleep. 

                Some songs are a bit more interesting for the sheer fact they avoid the violin-horn boring combination. “Freelove” takes a more experimental tact, and “Death’s Door” has a sparser sound with guitar. Even these aren’t exceptional, but they do break up the monotony to some degree.

                I really wanted to like this a lot more than I did. Maybe in the future I’ll check out Sylvain’s other material, but this kind of shoddy work always puts me off.

The Strokes – Angles (Fin)

Previously on Beach Sloth:

               I guess it had to happen. Today the verdict’s in: guilty. The Strokes are guilty of overstaying their welcome. Coolness gone, the party’s over and they’re busy talking up a storm of boring to a bunch of hosts who just want to go to sleep. Perhaps this was inevitable; a band which captured a moment so well was due to get some sort of backlash. 

                They received the exact same score they got the last time for “First Impressions of Earth” on Pitchfork. Of course, they are going to continue sloughing through like their even-worse reviewed compatriots Interpol. Bands created in 2001 have mostly given up the ghost. LCD Soundsystem is doing a ‘final call’ as James Murphy goes on to focus exclusively on his record label DFA Records. The White Stripes, a band I never really enjoyed a huge amount for reason I won’t fully explain here, called it quits as well. 

                What did Pitchfork exactly dislike about the new album? First, they didn’t like disconnect between the songs and lyrics. Apparently the band hadn’t realized they were no longer cool and continued on oblivious to their own irrelevance. Pitchfork I’m certain has a certain timespan for how long a band is allowed to be important in the giant blog-o-sphere. 

                Accusations were thrown around of the band phoning it in for most of the songs. Perhaps this is true. I feel that’s true for a lot of bands in general. Reading through the article, I felt parts of it felt a bit more optimistic than the 5.9 suggested. Especially towards the end where they complimented a few tracks. Keep in mind the 5.9 is around the cusp for Pitchfork. Though they panned this album, it was a light panning. The Strokes might consider this more of a warning if they continue down this path.

                Since the Strokes were pretty ambivalent about continuing the project in the first place, this may be the death knell of the group. Instead, all of them may break up and focus on their side projects rather than suffer another critical drubbing. Once they’ve announced they are breaking up, Pitchfork can then announce it on their left-hand sidebar with a disclaimer in the beginning saying “Told you so. Those guys blew.”

                Operation Make Everyone Satisfied, the condescending title of Julian Casablanca’s approach towards the album, summarizes it well. Julian couldn’t have cared less how this did. It is telling at live shows people scream for them to play their older songs. Their last attempt to reinvent themselves failed, crashing and burning behind them. Most of the songs got drubbed.  

                Personally, I liked the album more than the fellows at Pitchfork. No, I didn’t love it. But then, I never really loved the Strokes. Angles were a decent attempt to create a new sound which wasn’t entirely successful. The Strokes are just a band who fell out of favor with critical darlings. 2001 was a long time ago. Things change. 

                Hearing about this failure, countless people now realize they’re too old for this stuff. No longer can you accept beer in delightful red cups. All those great memories of the Strokes playing at some hip off-campus party are just that, memories. Instead, we should tell our children and grandchildren about that crazy band which virtually embodied being a twenty something and hip. The Strokes have officially gone into that magical place called nostalgia, where New Order and Depeche Mode currently reside. It was a good run guys. 

                Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.