Onelinedrawing
"Visitor" CD (Jade Tree)
Basic math for the promotionally impaired: promo CD - liner notes = coaster.
"The Volunteers" CD (Jade Tree)
Well, Jade Tree finally stopped sending advance releases and started sending totally thrashed promo copies. For the life of me, I couldn't get the liner notes out of the digipak ... but that's okay, because the tray in the digipak was shattered anyway. I consider these things to be fucking shames because I actually like this. It's nothing fancy, nor is it new. It's just well done, introspective, melodic indie rock which will fit perfectly into the record collections of people who like the Kinsellas' work (see: American Football, Owen, etc.). While all of these songs are pretty, drifting musical pieces which frequently feature breathy vocals and most seem like the perfect thing to put on when putting on the moves on that special someone for the very first time, some of them are just slightly too energetic (see: New End Original) to serve as background music. With all of that said, these songs are simply too immediately catchy to think that this is a record that I would still like in a year or two - they're too immediately present and enjoyable; as most of us know, the albums we like best are the ones that we have to fight with for a while. This record is simply too genial to take a swing at me on the first listen. While that speaks well of its craft, it doesn't say much about its staying power or whether it will mean much to me in the future.