RipFork

Artist: Grand Archives

Album: Keep in Mind Frankenstein

Reviewer: Ian Cohen

Pitchfork, 2009

Writing Disorders: Scorn Disease

Most Emo Phrase: “they managed to avoid being redundant”

WTF: “Calexico-ish curiosity”

Ian, if there’s an award for pulling explanations out of your ass, you’re strong in the running with this one:

“On their highly enjoyable 2008 debut, Grand Archives passed a very, very narrow test:”

Whoa, call the cavalry boys. This debut didn’t JUST bestow enjoyment on the listener. It gave HIGH LEVELS of enjoyment. Hell, the fella I heard this from might have even said it was “great,” “swell,” or “a dilly of an album” if he wasn’t busy judging it according to very, very narrow tests he completely made up.

Here’s another one of your rabbits out of the hat:

“They integrated rootsy influences from both the PacNW indie and Southern country to honor the Band of Horses connection”

Link, you awake on a beach. An owl perches on a nearby branch. It speaks. Link, you must travel to the PacNW indie zone in the Southern country to retrieve the rootsy influence, so you may one day summon the Band of Horses against Gannon.

You begin with 3 hearts, a shield with your name engraved on it, and a bottle of secret medicine given to you by Crazy Tracy.

[You hack some pots and tall grass for unmarked Indian currency]

Look man, I know you’re probably dripping off your glans talking about zones of indie influence that may or may not exist, but I reckon most listeners don’t really care. They’ll most likely be like, “OOHhhh…I like this one bit,” or “NOOHhhh…I don’t like this one bit.” I doubt many of them in a pre-internet age would use the card catalog at National Indie Archives just to know that tidbit of info you so tediously portrayed. And if you are the kind of person who would…power to you. World peace awaits.

By the way, congrats on knowing a band member ended up in the Shins! You must really have a window into his motivations behind the “quirks and rawk he may have brought to the table.” Or not. But pats on the back to the man who knew the Shins connection. Do I hear $1, $2! Come on ladies, this is a sensitive man auction.





And finally, you heap on the biggest conjecture of all:

“Now Grand Archives aim to make a record that can be defined on its own terms”

Did the band tell you that in your interview with them backstage? Were you on the phone with the singer when he declared he’d make a record defined on its own terms…and none other? Or did you make something up again without qualifying it as something you “thought,” “posited” or “hypothesized?” <<[SUGGESTIONS]

By the way, Ian, if you really did have an interview with the band or got a front row seat to their vision, isn’t it kind of a dick move to give their album a rating of neutral/bad? Isn’t it a little dickish to write things like:

“I’m not so sure their confidence is applied to the right things”

“Brooke’s voice is nice enough, sort of like a Listerine breath strip”

“they’re neither strong enough harmonically nor interesting enough texturally to feel spare”

You either poached a band after being given intimate access to their work, or you completely made it up, but didn’t qualify it as something you made up. Boy, that’s heavy.