THE ROBOT ATE ME
They Ate Themselves (Swimslowly Records)
Reviewed by Holly Day

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This is a tough call, because this thing wins me over on so many levels, but loses me on others. The arrangements, consisting of spacey synthesizers, violins, accordions, scratchy phonographs, a variety of really cool percussion, musical saws, and a ton of sound effects, are amazingly beautiful, and sound futuristic and folksy all at once. However, the songs feel like hours and hours were spent composing the wonderful musical backdrop, and then the lyrics were just thrown together at the last minute because the songs needed words. Ryland Bouchard has a nice enough voice, but the overall effect sounds like he wasn't sure what key the songs were going to be in when he sat down at the studio to record. But really, the good parts of this album far outweigh the bad, and my quibbles are pretty minor in the big scheme of things.

[Pick this up at http://www.swimslowly.com.]

© 2003 - Holly Day