#reviewing some history if yknow what i mean

[mikunology]

I normally don't make this kinda post but this is for science. Rb and put in the tags your favorite CLASSIC classic vocaloid songs. like 2007-2012 only

#vocaloid #text #reviewing some history if yknow what i mean

[ducktracy]

So in “Back in Action”, it is claimed that if Porky dropped his stutter, he would be rendered unfunny. Do you think this is true?

i think there’s a big misconception that Porky’s stutter pulls more weight than it actually does. it can absolutely add its own humor and certainly a lot of charm, but i wholeheartedly disagree that he needs it to be funny

the stutter can be an avenue for a lot of fun or charming gags (the ever reliable bait and eh-sweh-swee-eh-swetch-swi—beh-bai-eh-bait and eh-seh-sweh—the ever reliable switcheroo is always a favorite, but the rare occasions where it’s actually acknowledged by Porky himself make for some fun situations too), but Porky’s personality is i think wholly independent from his speech patterns and many of his best cartoons aren’t because he has a stutter and nothing else. it can help with charisma for sure, and i definitely think it would be an odd if he didn’t have it, but… it’s like a topper for what’s already there. stutter or no stutter, he’s a bumbling, oblivious but endearing innocent. the stutter i think helps to convey all that, but is like a compliment to an already founded ensemble

outside of the bait-n-switch wordplay (which can be genius in its own right but IS often used as a crutch by directors when they’re having trouble finding inspiration for him), it’s rare that Porky or other characters really comment on the stutter. likewise, very rarely is it made fun of, and if it is it’s usually by characters who are purposefully supposed to be conveyed as assholes in the moment. which, y’know, is good! it’s not something that’s often noted by other characters and i think that does help in showing that he’s more than just a guy who stutters and doesn’t really single him out.

and you have clips like this for example—i didn’t notice anything odd about it until i noticed there wasn’t a stutter, and even then the personality is still all there in the voice (and mannerisms.) likewise, there’s quite a bit of his dialogue that he goes through without stuttering because having him stutter on every single sentence ever WOULD be excessive. it’s definitely an art, all of the varying directors have different variations of his stutter and as i said before, sometimes you CAN tell when the directors are struggling with inspiration because that’s when the switcheroos come out in close concentration; i don’t think it’s Porky being an unfunny character so much as it is the occasional lack of inspiration. the personality is VERY much there, but sometimes it can be hard to find depending on the circumstances. i have a hard time pinning that as a problem exclusive to Porky

i guess it depends who you ask. i am a Porky nut and often make a point to try and get people to come to The Pork Side because i feel he’s very underrepresented and a very FUNNY character at that! so i’m a bit biased—some other people may think he IS only funny because of the stutter. i personally think that’s very false and puts a lot of faith on the stutter when (at least in the originals) it’s not something given a lot of importance from the characters themselves. i can only really think of one cartoon where the stutter is central to the plot (two if you count the days with his original voice actor, whose stutter was natural)—it would certainly be odd without it, and i can see how it adds a lot of charm and some personality, but people who say he’s ONLY funny because of the stutter are usually people who don’t know how to write him to begin with

#i’ve said it before but i do have a bit of a mild stutter myself—i think part of it is because my brain and mouth are always both going #1000mph and i struggle to get the words out sometimes but even when that’s not the case it‘s still there/a nuisance #and i do genuinely believe i love writing so much/so LONG because i’m not really able to be as articulate in person as i am when i actually #have full control of my words. i am very very talkative and social so it’s not a shyness thing it’s just nice to actually be able to say #what you mean HAHAHA even if i do still put filler words and interjections in my typed speech #i know personally watching some Porky cartoons i’ve heard a particular line delivery and been like ‘oh hey that sounds realistic i’ve #sounded like that too!’ it’s rare since Mel Blanc’s stuttering is purposefully sort of doctored (i think it’s much less formulaic than what #Bob Bergen explained it as in that VERY VERY AWESOME of him laying out the stutter i love it but the formula really is a matter of voice #direction from the directors rather than Blanc himself) but i do kind of enjoy that #and likewise as i said before i enjoy that it’s not like. his defining factor. Porky does not go duck hunting because he has a stutter or #he doesn’t throw his cats out because he has a stutter he doesn’t explain his entire life’s history to a comatose dog in a barnyard then #feels a compulsion to excuse himself because of the stutter YKNOW… if you actually watch the cartoons it feels just like a compliment to #what’s already there. i do think it would be weird if he lost it and i think it has a lot of charm and can be an avenue for fun things but #in terms of pure humor? like from his personality? the stutter is irrelevant because a stutter is not a personality to begin with #but because people dismiss him as boring or don’t watch his cartoons he’s just known as the guy who talks funny and i think you’ll find so #much more if you actually watch the cartoons #i’d be lying if i said part of why i do my reviews was to shed Porky some light HAHAHAHA Daffy is my favorite i’ve said it before but nobody #*wasn’t #talks about Porky and as his self declared no. 1 fan (i say this facetiously) i feel it’s my civic duty #THIS IS SO LONG i shouldn’t apologize it’s my blog but. i’m behind on reviews and my next cartoon is a Porky short (that does very much use #his stutter as a crutch RIP) so this is like. my warm up. getting me in the zone. so thank you HAHAHAHAH #anonymous #asks #long post

[tungle-squentacles]

squentacles has some things to say about jurassic world: dominion

ok yeah i KNOW that i'm over 4 months late but i also didn't get a chance (didn't want to) watch it until yesterday. i'm tagging this a movie review for the sake of convenience, but it's closer to a rant. i guess.

anyways my opinions on the movie is mainly that it's massively disappointing. spoilers for jurassic park 5 and beyond etc etc. discussion is fine and welcomed as long as you don't be mean about it

first and biggest concern: IT WASN'T EVEN FOCUSED ON THE DINOSAURS :(((( the main thing was that this weird new world had to navigate the existence of Actual Fucking Dinosaurs, with maybe some ✨spicy ethical quandaries✨ thrown in for flavor. from the amount of times the dinosaurs showed up in the trailer and also the history of the Entire Franchise you'd rightfully think so, but instead of being the central conflict, they get one scene at the beginning, and then they're just setpieces. i am crying

the cowboy scene was definitely just wish fulfillment. i'm not even mad about that. good for whichever writer got that in the movie, i just though that was pretty goofy

the Giant Locust swarms were terrifying, and from the massive scale of the impacts you'd think it was going to be the main focus, but the corporation kidnapped the "clone" girl now! that's right this is a break in movie folks

just a disclaimer for people who were fucking terrified of the locusts (like yours truly :) ): insects can't actually get that big! most insects have external circulatory systems with spiracles to take oxygen in from directly outside. this is fine when they're small because the surface area/volume ratio of normal locusts is much higher than that of those fucking monstrosities (square cube law etc etc). this may be common knowledge to people. i will still put this disclaimer here for my own benefit.

sattler is so fucking cool. while grant was brooding about the dying funds of paleontology and malcolm was giving ted talks about humanty's inevitable downfall, she changed career paths and wrote several papers about soil and algae as an energy source. she actually managed to be productive. love that for her

but beyond that, i didn;t really get invested in many of the characters (other than kayla because she was cool). it wasn't as plot-focused as many other Big movies i've seen, but it still wasn;t really character-focused either.

i'm taking this quote from i thiiiink the infinity war pitch meeting, because it applies to so many movies: "so much happens in this movie that the characters don't have time to yknow. be characters"

can't forget the Vaguely Easter European/Middle Eastern/Just Generally Foreign Illegal Dinosaur Corrupt Fighting Trade Breeding Black Market! an extremely normal and not harmful trope

i pity the cgi folks who probably worked their eyes off for this movie, but also i think the cgi was bad. they should have used puppets dude

it's been nearly a year since i last saw jurassic park 5, so i don't remember the full details of the movie, including maisie's mediocre-ish arc, but it also would have been interesting knowing her decision over releasing the dinosaurs would have been different if she knew she wasn't a clone

also it was kind of weird for the writers to backtrack on the clone thing. that's all i have to say. it was strange

the scene where everyone had to split up into groups to do stuff (i forgot what said stuff was) was nice actually! it should have been longer. i love to see characters interact and bond in weird situations

(at this point there are 20 minutes left into the movie, i thought. how's the movie going to resolve the locusts and dinosaurs now? HAHAHAHA,)

of course, there was the obligatory dino fight!!!! but i think it was less than 3 minutes long. it even failed to give tension for the helicopter scene, which was the only other reason why it was there. there were no stakes in that fight

admittedly the locusts made a decent b-plot but by the end of the movie they were just gone. girl

in face, the ending felt like the movie gave itself too many plot threads for itself to handle, so it just tied them up as quickly and conveniently as possible. that cowboy rival dinosaur killer died in the black market. the billionaire got killed off in the tunnel several minutes before the finale, which was admittedly ironic and deserved, but then the locusts were completely eradicated within an ambiguous span of time. and then people just decided to be fine with the dinosaurs (which was also accompanied by a voiceover from charlotte lockwood, which made it fine i guess).

like. you had the dinosaur problem at the beginning of the movie, and then the locusts happened, and then that got resolved. x + 1 - 1 = x. you're right back where you started buddy.

as did the second two sequels of the original jurassic park movie, it also completely missed the Point of the original movie. where's the consquences for playing god? ian malcolm is rotating on the floor rn

seriously a mosasaurus(?) ate a fucking boat. are we not gonna address that

main takeaway(s): more dinosaurs, more character moments, more moral quandaries, and also at least one puppet. i think that would be swell

#squent post #media review #movie review #technically #jurassic park #jurassic world #jurassic world dominion #jurassic world: dominion #long post #lukewarm takes

[fandom-geek]

yknow i’m getting reallllyy fed up of the entire “historians think shakespeare was straight lol how backwards is academia” bullshit

that might’ve been the mainstream view sixty years ago but you have to be going off some really weird shit to think that’s still how most of them see it now!

so on that note, let’s go on a quick historiographical trip! btw if you can’t access any of these, i highly recommend sci-hub.tw which should allow you to read all of the stuff i link.

i also make no claims to this being thorough, and there’s a tonne of writing on shakespeare’s bisexuality mid-80s onwards. i’m just pointing out the existence of these articles and books, since tumblr seems so dedicated to denying it exists . and if any shakespearian scholars or early modern historians want to correct me, feel free to since i’m nowhere near an expert in this period, let alone the historiography of shakespeare’s sexuality

quick tl;dr for those who don’t want to read on - sexuality is complicated, especially when we’re talking about a time period where they didn’t have even the same sort of categories for sexuality. people have been going “uhhhh shakespeare sounds hella attracted to this guy” for over fifty years, and 1980s onwards it’s been fairly mainstream to go “yep so shakespeare’s definitely bisexual”

and now for the actual evidence to back that shit up

1956 - a review on the 1955 book The Mutual Flame, which argues that shakespeare was mainly driven to write because he was bi af

For the boy he may perhaps have had only a "homosexual idealism", and the homosexuality is comparatively respectable because it means "having a sexual propensity for persons of one's own sex"

Happily, too, "having in his idealised passion for the beloved boy so touched the bisexual heart, or goal, of human striving, Shakespeare could write with ease of great affairs.”

1987 - “Bisexual Shakespeare?”, a review on Joseph Pequigney’s Such is My Love, which argues pretty heavily for shakespeare’s bisexuality and his attraction to the youth mentioned in his sonnets. the review’s author disagrees with most of Pequigney’s specific analysis, but does conclude that

All Pequigney's arguments are supported by careful, scrupulous readings of the texts. He establishes conclusively that the poems reflect an intimate relation between poet and youth, and that the sexual element cannot be ignored. He will persuade many students to read the Sonnets with renewed attention and insight, and for this he deserves much praise.

1998 - “Shakespeare: A Life” (pages xii-xiii in the introduction). this one i want to talk about in particular, because i get the feeling this is where tumblr completely ignores nuance

That development occurred in an England in which communal instincts and divisions of social rank were almost unimaginably stronger than today, and where terms such as ‘homosexual’ and ‘bisexual’ and certain other modern categories did not exist. I have tried to sketch briefly the homoerotic world of his patron Southampton’s friends, some attitudes expressed in the sonnet vogue, and to say what Shakespeare’s sonnets may suggest about him.

so. some people might read that and assume this means everyone was straight in shakespeare’s time. nope

this statement is pretty much like saying “the sky is blue” in queer histories and similar fields, as far as i’m aware. it’s saying that any specific labels didn’t exist in shakespeare’s time, so any analysis assuming shakespeare must fit neatly into one of our categories is set up for failure from the start.

to quote an 2006 article on “The Sexualities of Edward II” from “The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives”

Let me be clear from the outset: this study does not set out to cast Edward II as a medieval representative of any one modern category of sexual orientation, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, whatever. The efforts made in the last few generations of scholarship to 'identify' this king in such a   manner are, in the end, both anachronistic and futile: anachronistic because medieval attitudes to sexuality were so different from our own, and futile because the nature of the evidence makes it impossible to tell what Edward actually did - let alone what he thought himself to be doing - whether and when he engaged in emotional and physical contact with women or men.

although shakespeare lived in the early modern period instead of the medieval period, the bolded part remains very much the same. different attitudes, different categories - and you can’t fit a circle into a square hole

the bit about “what he thought himself to be doing” is possibly different, but that’s a different can of worms about “was shakespeare writing his sonnets as himself or as a persona related to himself or as a completely separate persona” which is a pretty common question in literature analysis, in my experience, and a pretty fundamental one when it comes to how you analyse it

so - when academics say they can’t say if someone is specifically bisexual, gay, lesbian, etc, because this person existed before these were common categories. they’re right. having sex with another man (as a man) was an act in shakespeare’s time, not an identity. so pushing an identity onto a man who lived in a society that well- yknow what, that’s the next bit, so just read on

2011 - this is probably my favourite article, because it’s published in the journal of bisexuality and it’s called “Toward a Bisexual Shakespeare: The Social Importance of Specifically Bisexual Readings of Shakespeare” that includes “a brief write-up of the “Queering Shakespeare” workshop run at BiCon 2010 in London”

(seriously guys how come i didn’t know this is a thing?? why don’t i ever get invited to the cool stuff)

At a time when in his home town of Stratford the modal average age of marriage for men was 24 (Wells, 2010), Shakespeare married the pregnant Anne Hathaway when he was just 18. Unlike Claudio in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, who is imprisoned and sentenced to death, Shakespeare himself escaped punishment for premarital sex with his fiance. Traub (1992) as well as others, saw illicit versus officially sanctioned desire and attachments as being the true binary in the Early Modern Era, rather than purely same- versus opposite-sex ones. If this is true then this episode would carry at least as much weight as any perceived same-sex activity by Shakespeare, the perceived threat being to marriage and heredity rather than to heterosexuality. It would also make the adulterous so-called dark lady sonnets as destabilizing as the ones to the young man. In any case Shakespeare does not seem to have had any difficulty with attraction to women and had no more reticence or reluctance to act on his desire as to incorporate the depiction of such attraction in his work. (pp. 348-349)

as i was saying. shakespeare’s society (arguably, and it’s a view i agree with) mainly saw romantic attachments as “allowed” and “not allowed”. there were many male/female attachments which would be “not allowed” (such as premarital sex) in the same way as male/male attachments would not be. hell, it’s arguably because of the same thing - both protestantism and catholicism saw the only good sex as procreative sex, and the only time you were allowed to procreate was when you were married*

*terms and conditions may apply. if a lecture i’ve had by an oxford medievalist is anywhere near accurate, even married couples couldn’t have sex practically half the year (not during lent, not the night before a mass [wednesdays and sundays], not the day of mass, not on a feastday, etc. etc. etc......). but that was in the 1200s catholic england, so i think england may’ve been a tad more lenient by then what with protestantism and the gradual elimination of saints

#long post cw #william shakespeare #lgbtq history #may read awfully because it's the middle of exams for me and it's 11pm but hey it's been bugging me for literal ages so #might as well procrastinate through google scholar yknow

[the-lone-reviewer]

Reviewing: Tron (1982)

(I know, I know, it’s been a while, but a bitch is busy, yknow?)

Tron. The scifi movie you’ve always heard of, but either never watched or never cared much about. The sequel had Daft Punk music. But what about the original? The movie that used groundbreaking computer generated images and a whole lot of editing prowess to immerse you and the characters into a video game world. Certainly it deserves praise for being a major step in CGI history, but is it a good movie? I’m here to tell you what I think.

Now, I’m going to establish that I am a little biased. I love scifi. Always have. One of my favorite movies is Logan’s Run, which is by no means a good movie, but it’s a hell of a time. On the other hand, I thought Blade Runner was boring. What can I say, I have ADHD.

So, Tron. I watched it with some friends, and didn’t intend to pay much attention. But the bright colors and fast pace drew me in, and I realized this wasn’t going to be another scifi slog. And, at around an hour and a half, even if you do get bored, the movie isn’t all that long.

I came into it knowing absolutely nothing about Tron other than that they have glowing motorcycles. I did not know that Tron was a dude’s name. I did not know there were real-life segments. Basically I assumed it was going to be like Wreck-It Ralph, and to an extent the concepts are the same. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I actually enjoyed Tron. The graphics, though dated, are eye-catching and enjoyable. The matte paintings are very well done, and make the world feel wider and more immersive. Many movies involving people being immersed in an electronic world don’t capture the feeling of playing a video game well, but Tron captures it perfectly. What Tron has, over things such as Ready Player One, is the fact even though there are no defined levels, there are sort of checkpoints in which Flynn progresses to the next area. Whether it be in the ballgame match, the lightcycle race, or facing the Master Program at the end, you watch as Flynn travels through the program, and it feels like a natural progression in difficulty. The next step is harder than the one before. Though the world of Tron is not a video game but a computer program, you get the feeling that the people who made it knew how video games worked, and wanted to adapt that to a film. Personally, I think they did a good job.

The plot is relatively standard fare, man in computer system must beat Big Bad Master Computer, but given how it was so groundbreaking for the genre, we can forgive that. Not everything is explained to you, like how Flynn has certain abilities within the program, but it’s nothing you can’t put together with context clues. And Tron understands that the audience does not need every little detail handed to them on a silver platter, much like the Matrix. You learn about the world as the movie goes on, with Flynn acting as somewhat of an audience surrogate. In my opinion, it works.

My one main issue with the movie was the audio balancing. I watched it on Disney+, and you’d think they’d fix it, but they didn’t. The music is ear-shatteringly loud, while the voices are softer, so if you turn the volume down during the non-dialogue parts, then you won’t be able to hear what they’re saying. I’d recommend watching with subtitles.

Overall, I quite enjoyed Tron. If you’re a fan of somewhat cheesy scifi films, or want to see something that was groundbreaking for the genre, Tron is a good movie for you. If you’re a fan of 80′s video games, watch Tron instead of Ready Player One. I promise you it’ll be a better experience.

Did not expect this to get so long, but Tron has a lot to it for an hour and a half film. I’d give Tron a... 7.5/10. Very enjoyable, but the audio balancing was rough, the age really shows in the graphics, and like any older scifi, it’s got its more boring or completely unnecessary moments. As a scifi fan, it was a treat. If you’re looking for something a little less vaporwave, Tron might not be for you.

#the lone reviewer #Tron #long post #movie review

[mint-sm]

LOS CAMPESINOS! REVIEW/ANALYSIS: No Blues

Ugh… I’m about to do a bad thing and probably make a lot of other Los Camp fans angry. If they actually read this, that is.

Okay, I want you to take a look at this cover art for a second. This kinda lush greenery flushed out with this pink-ish mist. It’s a little funny visual pun of the title of this album (Get it? No blues? Hah), and it probably does bring some form of atmosphere and interest to someone in the right mindset or just has a different taste in visual aesthetics… but I’m sorry, personally for me, it’s kinda flat. Not only is that pink that kind of flat-looking “millennial pastel pink,” but as a whole, this cover feels like it’s lacking contrast.

Honestly, it feels like a bit of an apt summation for the album itself: I can totally see the potential appeal to a certain crowd, and there might technically be nothing much wrong with it, but honestly, I can’t get into it despite it apparently getting a lot more positive response than something like “Romance is Boring.” I’m not trying to be resentful or anything, but it’s kinda confusing because while I can find a lot of arguments as to why “Romance is Boring” is so compelling, I can’t honestly find much about “No Blues” that explains why people love it so much, and it just doesn’t do it for me. That’s basically the “No Blues” right there. It don’t do it for me.

So remember in my first few Los Camp reviews how I said the band has 3 distinct eras? Reminder: “Hold on Now Youngster...” and about half of “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed” were part of a “Twee Pop Era,” which then bled slightly into the “Noise Rock Era” with “Romance is Boring,” but it was immediately halted with “Hello Sadness,” and since then with this album and the next, “Sick Scenes,” we’ve been in a sort of “Mellow Alt Rock Era.” “No Blues” epitomizes this era very much, and it does signify a lot of the gradual changes to the band throughout the years that I can both appreciate, but also not.

On one hand, I’m really glad that Los Camp have changed their sound as pretty fluidly as they had. While I think I’ll always find their earlier works a bit more compelling, I’m glad to see that a crashing twee-rock band of college students in their 20’s is willing to grow up an adapt to something more mature-sounding and refined with a few more years to grow and personally develop, especially in a music scene that has kind of eschewed the music they had found previous success in, and have shifted to this sort of alt rock scene. One that has much cleaner production and mixing, one with slightly gentler guitars, tighter vocals, and more “grown-up,” much more self-aware themes.

I’m also glad that this was made during a point where Gareth Campesinos! finally seemed to reach a breakthrough and write lyrics and music that was especially HIM. Going once again back to “Youngster,” another reason why he’s not very fond of it was because of his lyrics, which he felt like was from a caricature of himself rather than himself-himself, and it felt rather dishonest or the like. Starting from “No Blues,” it seems Gareth has finally allowed himself to be as freely-moving and esoteric as he wanted, especially since the darkness of his 2011 personal history that resulted in “Hello Sadness” being the darkest album they’ve ever released no longer clouded him. I can totally respect that: he finally found a grip on the type of music that he wants to make, and the band was now free to reach its current goals, and that’s completely appreciable an artist.

MY PROSE IS PURPLE BUT NOT AS PRETTY AS LUCER-ER-ER-ERRRNE! / FOR SWEET NOTHINGS FROM THE LIPS OF A GARGOYLE, NOBODY EVER YEARNED /

HOWEVER... The problem that I immediately have with “No Blues” is that despite all of its admirable artistic intentions, it comes off as pretty pale and boring, to be honest. Musically and lyrically, this album just is not very compelling to me, because it honestly feels way too much of an attempt at the band going “Oh fuck yes, we’re done with being emo like in Hello Sadness, now we can actually write the music that we actually want to make!” But instead of it turning out somewhat adventurous, it feels both very crammed, rushed, and mildly inaccessible (for the band, anyway), and it’s done so in a way that it’s not only lacking diversity, but there’s almost no room for it to properly breathe, and as such just feels samey-sounding and choked a lot of the time.

Two terms I’ve used a lot regarding Los Camp’s discography are “dense” and “engaging,” and I think I need to specifically define what I mean by that. When I say “dense,” it usually means the music or the lyrics are compact with details, sometimes in like a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it rate. This gives a lot of the albums a lot of their relistinability, and you’ll keep finding more and more creative and colorful little moments every time you listen to a song.

But something that you also need to tap on if you want to make them actually worth listening to again is that you have to make them “engaging,” and that comes as a result of a lot of things, such as making the music or lyrics properly digestible, building up empathy or sympathy, building up the listener’s interest in the topics you want to delve into, whether the listener is remotely interested in your topics, etc. It’s not an exact thing and it is very subjective, but unfortunately, I don’t feel that majority of “No Blues” really checks off any of those ticks.

With “No Blues,” what it often feels like is that the lyrics have become very dense, with some of the most obscure references to date -- lots of lyrics about other musicians’ lyrics, politics, obscure postmodernist novelists, constellations, Greek mythology in correlation to those constellations, and European football. Holy shit, European football is everywhere on this album -- but there’s nothing particularly engaging about it unless you actually give a damn about it, because as I mentioned with “Hello Sadness,” one of my bigger problems with it was that it lacked context.

PEOPLE LAUGH, THEY WILL CALL IT FOLLY / BUT WE CONNECTED LIKE A YEBOAH VOLLEY /

Yeah, these may be complex and esoteric metaphors, but not only do they end up being incredibly distracting for me as I have to manually figure out with almost every line what the hell emotion Gareth’s supposed to be conveying, but I have no real drive or motive to actually bother because it doesn’t really say anything as is (That “Yeboah volley” line above? Guess what that’s supposed to mean without googling it. Trust me, context doesn’t really help) In that regard, it’s actually making an even bigger flaw I had with “Hello Sadness” even worse: Los Camp’s first three albums were able to convey a smattering of different, sometimes diametrically opposing emotions. “Hello Sadness” reduced itself to be being more comfortable with trying to convey just one.

But “No Blues”? I can’t really find anything that personal or really that narrative or thematic about what’s going on here other than a really vague… I dunno, millennial liberation? Light humor? Mature upbeatness? This doesn’t feel confusing in the sense that “which one of these  many emotions should I be REALLY feeling?,” it’s more like “what is this one thing I’m supposed to latch onto? Whatever it is, it feels like I’m clutching at straws here.” Or more directly, it’s just one-half an emotion at best, and even then, there’s nothing very engaging or dynamic about it.

And that’s one of my biggest problems with the album as a whole, as well as why up to this point I really haven’t said anything about specific songs yet. It all feels rather flat and too clean for its own good, like a really sharp, hard glowing red, now being reduced into a flat, grayish pink. It might have a little bit more shine to it, but a lot of its actual vibrance has been lost, resulting in all the songs being mostly homogenous, unadventurous alternative indie rock that honestly doesn’t feel like it’s offering anything that new or unique as a now-turned alt-rock indie band. It may have shed the youthful problems that Los Camp themselves felt they were plagued with, but in the end it feels like a lot of that youthfulness is what made them so compelling, and now they’re just… boring.

THERE'S NO BOX TO TICK FOR RED, SO I PUT DOWN BLUE INSTEAD / 'CAUSE IT'S CLOSEST THERE'S TO GREY IN THE CATEGORIES / AND THE VEINS WITHIN THE WHITES ARE A STATEMENT OF DEMISE / DOE EYES, YOU SHOULD STAY AT HOME LICKING BATTERIES /

But I suppose I should get onto individual tracks. Like I said, a lot of it feels rather homogenous and unadventurous, and as such, a lot of it is pretty uninteresting to talk about since most of the tracks feel like they lack diversity, lyrically and sonically.

“What Death Leaves Behind” and “Cemetery Gaits” are I feel what are the album’s more “banger” tracks, but unfortunately, with the cleaner and more sterile production, a lot of it feels a little flaccid. Yes, Gareth’s voice is loud, the drums and guitars are wailing away, and you can totally tell when they’re trying to make the catchy standout moments, but that’s kind of the problem: I can totally expect what they’re doing at this point, and it doesn’t strike any chords for me.

They’re playing chords, they said their lines (which again, since they’re so obtuse a lot of the time, I can’t really hear them as anything except just words instead of, yknow, concepts or ideas), but it all sounds very generic and sanitized, and honestly very stuffed; since there’s not a lot of proper breathing room or actual relief, the progression of these songs are often very uneventful and unsatisfying. In these tracks especially, I don’t feel any sense of escalation, climax or relief despite SOME flatly-mixed-in additional instruments near the end; it all somehow sounds exactly the same and I’m like “Get the hell on with it already! Where’s the actual payoff?”

I feel bad drawing comparisons back to the band’s earlier works, but I kinda have to because it shows the band have been shown to be capable of definite satisfaction (hell, some tracks I’ll get to later on manage to pull this off). Those albums were messier and noisier, yes, but if I could describe them as like a texture, they would be like nice slabs of concrete pavement. Probably really gritty, but not unpleasant enough to walk on barefoot, and you’ll probably get a lot of different consistencies and feels depending on how it was paved, and overall it feels solid.

“No Blues” on the other hand just feels like a sheet of completely smooth, cheap plastic. Brittle, lacking in texture, and completely devoid of life despite it attempting to mimic a popular sound and style, but whether by design or by accident, it’s still cheap, hollow, and feels really artificial, but not even in like a PC Music/SOPHIE way where it’s also trying to be so whacked-out and alien and uncanny-valley-ish on purpose.

This trait also goes onto the slower moments, such as “A Portrait of the Trequartista as a Young Man” or “Glue Me” or “Selling Rope (Swan Dive to Estuary)”, which again, are not only not very musically adventurous, and they get kinda tedious and boring after a minute or so despite any sort of attempts at escalation or being dynamic, and the lyrics that could usually pick up that slack are really unengaging. I’m reading the lyrics, and I’m trying to find the many, many references in this album, but while I can understand them, I don’t “get” them, because I’m like “Okay? So?”

MAKE HIM RECITE THIS MURDER BALLAD / A SOMBRE TUNE TOLD BY A BORE / PUMP BLOOD AROUND THE LIMP AND PALLID / HARMONISING AS YOU SNORED /

However, I will say though, this album isn’t completely devoid of good ideas, because despite me saying this album doesn’t have a lot of standout moments, there are some good concepts here and there. While I think the rest of the song is kinda “meh,” “Cemetery Gaits” has a pretty neat intro, with that small swooping, kinda-windy and radio-wave-sounding soundscape matched with this little looping synth arpeggios, then gradually matched with a gradual increase instrumentation, like guitars, pianos, then finally just exploding with drums, it’s a great start to the track. It’s a shame that it doesn’t quite escalate any further than that, even with the introduction of Gareth’s vocals, multi-man chorus and that... ugh… millennial whoop near the end.

“As Lucerne/The Low” also starts of pretty well, and I think the verses actually do more in getting close to building a vibrancy that Los Camp was sorely needing, especially since the opening lines are just Gareth wailing “There is no blues that could sound quite as heartfelt as mi-i-i-iiine!”, just this wonderful bit of self-deprecating yet such sincere energy that I’ve missed for since previous albums, and is just one hell of an intro (I remember this was the first song of the concert I went to, and it was just like “Yep, that’s Los Camp!”). Unfortunately, by the time you get to the choruses, it all just slows down really awkwardly as all Gareth does is sing “Is what I came for… in the darkness I do adore… is what I came for” and it just doesn’t work, especially alongside those tropical steel drums. Yeah… I don’t really get it either.

I think one of the only tracks I love all the way through is the first one, “For Flotsam,” which admittedly does set a good first impression for the band’s new sound on the album. Refined and maybe a little too pristine, yes, but it actually covers a lot of range instrumentally and vocally, and actually feels like it has an actual atmospheric soundscape, and the mixing actually makes everything stick out a bit more.

Also, while the melody I probably should find monotonous and boring, especially with Kim’s looping vocals in the background that almost sound kinda artificial at times, it surprisingly flows really well, and it actually feels powerful and kinda… grooving at times. It’s got a really catchy hook, the melodies actually feel diverse, the lyrics are nowhere near as overly-ornate and distractingly referential as with other songs, and it provides both a satisfying rising tension AND also a satisfying climactic payoff, I love it.

FLOTSAM, JETSAM AND SPINDRIFT, ALL THE GIRLS I HAVE LOVED / DUMPED TO EARTH BY A SPENDTHRIFT, GILT ANGELS FROM ABOVE! / AND I SAW GOD IN THE BATHROOM, I BAPTISED HIM IN SICK / EMBRACED HIM AROUND HIS CISTERN, "C'EST LA MORT, ENOUGH OF THIS!" /

“Avocado Baby” is also a pretty good track, which also seemed to have a more compelling mix to it, and actually feels like a poppy “banger” track that does have more energy and a few more laughs to it that actually make sense without being a diehard football fanatic. The lyrics here feel a lot less overly-poetic than in other songs, and it manages to have a dense amount of wordplay in a way that’s both more easily digestible, but also pretty playful and kinda cute, especially for this era of Los Camp.

I HAD A FRIEND WHO HAD MADE A FLAG DAY / BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS FROM SHARDS OF A HEARTBREAK / I HAVE KNOWN FRIENDS TO CRACK FROM LOVE'S WEIGHT / BLOSSOM IN RIBCAGE, UNTIL THEIR BACKS BREAK! /

These two songs near the end, “Let It Spill” and “The Time Before the Last Time” also do manage to be a bit more accessible, and are more actually explicitly about something: Sex. Yay! But this being Los Camp, it’s played for a bit more awkwardness and comedy, one of my favorites being with this lyric in the latter song: “The shower-head moaned / and I looked down to the tray / Sons and daughters washed away.” Gross.

These actually do feel more instrumentally engaging as well. I love that descending, actually genuinely energetic and climactic chord progression for the chorus to “Let It Spill,” and that weirdly synthesized soundscape of “The Time Before the Last Time” actually feels both really refreshing, but also kinda beautiful and epic, and something that I honestly didn’t feel like I’ve heard Los Camp make before, but I’m glad they did.

LET IT SPILL, LET IT SPILL / LET IT SPILL ALL OVER US TWO / YOU'LL FIND ME UPSIDE DOWN IN THE BELFRY / 'CAUSE BABY, I'M BATS, IT IS TRUE /

I hesitate to call “No Blues” a “bad” album. I honestly do feel like I am missing something, especially when I write this among a sea of people who find that this album is one of Los Camp’s best. It has a lot of great ideas, and it even has a few really good songs, but the sum of its parts just isn’t making a compelling whole for me, and while I will still listen to those songs, there are a lot of parts of this album that don’t do it for my tastes.

I get the feeling that this really does come down to a lot of personal tastes and biases. I know that everybody has an equally valid opinion, but at the same time I kinda feel as though this album just wasn’t made for my person in mind, and in the end, it probably wasn’t. As I said earlier, this was basically Gareth deciding to go all irreverent and write the lyrics he wanted, and the band the music they wanted, and as it just so happens, it seems a lot of people genuinely appreciate it, so you know what, good for them; I’m glad they still have an appropriate audience (one that I can only assume are just as much football fanatics as most of the band is, and trust me, the football isn’t going to leave anytime soon).

Unfortunately, for me, I’m not that person. I’m less interested in Gareth’s referential humor and poetry and more for him being able to craft those conflicting mental mindscapes through standalone metaphors born from a deep sense of self-deprecating self-awareness, and in a way that anybody can really immediately sympathize with him. When he does come through with those moments in this album, I think it’s great, especially when the production becomes once again able to carry that emotion.

Sadly for me, most of the time, it does not, and what you get is like this weird plastic, beige box covered completely smoothly with a few symmetrical football-themed etchings onto it. If you have an appreciation for uniform, productive smoothness and those football-themed etchings, I won’t hold you back from appreciating it, but as for me, it’s just kinda “meh.” And that’s a shame. (2/5)

FAVES: “For Flotsam”, “Avocado, Baby”, “Let It Spill”, “The Time Before the Last Time”

#los campesinos #music review #no blues