Yummy yummy yummy
This is a little more complicated than most reviews.
I know someone in the band, the reviews are all glowing, the record is charting in the top ten of practically every hipster retail outlet plus indie radio, and their shows are selling out all over our country as well as Canada.
I get it; this band is popular.
They take the basic ingredient of tasteful melodies and transform them into something wildly unique. They are the Canadian Iron Chefs of pop music. The 14 dishes from “Twin Cinema” are filled with all the things every other band in the world is cooking with yet with theirs taste different. Better than most.
Here’s the catch. You can’t love everything which is code for I don’t love everything.
For instance I am certain there must be a dish with squid that won’t make me gag but I can’t stomach the thought of eating it regardless. I know there are plenty of people in the world who love it, I have sat next to friends eating it, but I can say with certainty that it’s not for me. The New Pornographers are a band I don’t mind being around yet my body doesn’t seem to want to digest it.
Maybe I should move away from the squid comparison.
Listening to all of Twin Cinema at once is like eating an entire box of Fruity Pebbles. A bowl, maybe two is ok, but not a whole box. Their music requires a sweet tooth and even if their brand of pop rock is more exotic and better preformed than most, it still looms out of my personal taste.
If I could pick just one of their delicate layered treats for consumption I would pick “The Jessica Numbers”. There is a feeling of decadence in taking in a song that good. Don’t hate me but after listening to just that one track I feel spoiled, utterly content, and don’t want to hear another bite. If I could, I would give that one song a 9.0 rating but in my particular case, there is too much of everything else.
“Twin Cinema” in all its glory is a super-group sugar fix that brings me to the brink of diabetic shock and clearly PFM’s high rating proves them to have quite the opposite reaction AKA a higher tolerance for the sweet. The New Pornographers seemingly make everyone as happy as a kid in an ear candy store and who doesn’t love a good candy store?
Me.
