David Smith
"Fastest Machine" CD (Are You Listening)
Lilting, melodic indie-pop. Apparently, it's RIYL with Damien Rice, Mercury Rev and Richard Buckner. Having only heard that Damien Rice song from "Closer," I'll stipulate that this comparison seems to be accurate, but doesn't make me appreciate this album any more. Mercury Rev? Dudes, smoke some different crack. The Rev was a hallucinatory indie-pop band with so much distortion that it took something on the order of a decade before most folks outside the U.K. press finally understood and appreciated "Yerself Is Steam." And Buckner? Hell if I know. Send me one of his albums and I'll tell you. Simply put, this is an album for people who might be inclined to spend a Saturday evening lying in bed, staring at the ceiling while listening to records and wishing to hell that they had the guts to talk to that girl or that guy or mourning their most recent break-up because they will never meet anyone like that ever again (for at least the next three months). But more importantly, what the fuck does RIYL mean? Can someone tell me that?