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Posts Tagged Purple Hemorrhage

Daniel Levin Becker’s Review of “Li(f)e” by Sage Francis

May 10

Posted by Matt Wendus in Dusted | 1 Comment

Artist: Sage Francis

Album: Li(f)e

Reviewer: Daniel Levin Becker

Dusted, 2010

Writing Disorders: Infectious Punctuation, Purple Hemorrhage








Longest Sentence: 72 words

Clunkiest Phrase: “unabashedly big-scoped hodgepodge”

Most Emo Phrase: “He’s unflinching when he rises to confess”




Daniel, I did the counting, and a fat quarter of your review is made up of asides. Believe it or not, that’s low balling the tally. I wasn’t even sure where one ended and the next began in a certain 70-word sentence that had two. I don’t know if you’ve ever read anything, Daniel, but two dashed-off asides in the same sentence isn’t something you normally see. There’s reason for that.

Even though readability isn’t high on your list of priorities, it’s never too late to change. I’ve only got space for one example, so let’s take this one:

“Subtlety isn’t his thing these days — which is a shame, in that he’s more than gifted enough as a lyricist to keep on making his heady, refined Anticon-era noodle-scratchers — but it’s a decision he made a few albums ago and it’s one worth respecting, because he’s been tackling unsubtle problems and doing it well.”

If lacking subtlety is the soup of the day, the two of you’d have something to discuss over lunch at Panera. After all, you could have split that sentence into three, taken your adverb gun off the full auto setting, or picked a metaphor more easily understood than “refined Anticon-era noodle-scratchers.” Brevity’s not a vice, Daniel.

Speaking of adverbs, I just got done berating Jesse Cataldo for his ridiculous use, and now you show up and match him:

“pretty legitimately”

“more than gifted enough”

“slightly stilted”

Here’s a teachable moment, Daniel. There are a couple of lines from the movie “Outbreak” that have served me well. The first, “With all due respect, General, fuck you…sir,” doesn’t really apply here, but you might profit from the other. “It’s an adverb, Sam. It’s a lazy tool of a weak mind.”

Daniel, improving as a writer simply means asking what you can live without. I want you to read this next bit and solve that pickle on your own. Don’t worry, I picked an easy one.

“Francis isn’t really angry this time out, as on, say, A Healthy Distrust, nor is he trying to outdo himself in quotability, as on, say, Hope.”

If you answered, “That sentence is perfect the way it is,” please accept my boot in your nads and try again. However…if you realized you can do without those egregious comma constructions around the word “say,” then you’re a winner! Daniel, a music review isn’t something you can accompany with dramatic pauses and hand motions for pizzazz. If the guy was angry on an album or heavy on “quotability,” just write that.

I’d like to say your only weakness is technique, but sometimes I just don’t understand your points. Por ejemplo:

“See…the vintage Francis high-concept gross-out “I Was Zero” (“I heard God is coming, and she’s a screamer”)”

Icky…sex! Seriously dude, if you’re going to provide us with lyrics to frame a “gross-out,” you might want to pick something gross. The image of humble man meat delivering screaming pleasure to God is…hot. Hotter than hentai. If you wrote, (“God ate a gnarly pupusa and took a dump on my face”), that’s a horse of a different color.

Topping all this off is your creepy posture as a merciful authority holding naysayers at bay with your scepter of certainty:

“he’s earned both the authority and the indulgence.”

“he deserves the benefit of the doubt”

“One would be forgiven for balking at a title like Li(f)e, which is heavy-handed in both implication and rendering, but Sage Francis has come by it pretty legitimately.”

If only other musicians were so lucky. Well it’s good to know the guy granting clemency is the one who condones judging albums by their titles. Heavy-handed indeed. Work on your writing, kid.

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Jesse Cataldo’s Review of “So Runs the World Away” by Josh Ritter

May 7

Posted by Matt Wendus in Slant | 3 Comments

Artist: Josh Ritter

Album: So Runs the World Away

Reviewer: Jesse Cataldo

Slant, 2010

Writing Disorders: Purple Hemorrhage, Idea Fever








Longest Sentence: 64 words

Most Emo Phrase: “straining for the faded colors of the distant past”

Irony: “ornate surfaces that are largely filled with air”




Jesse, I have a photographic memory, but there’s a line from a review I read last year that stuck out above the rest:

“Mew is not as thoughtful or smart as they think they are”

I couldn’t remember who wrote that stupid phrase or where it appeared, but the words still hibernated until sheer coincidence gave me a name to pair. Now that we’re here together at last, Jesse, I’m going to switch the deck. I’ve got this review of yours so we can test if you’re smart as you think. And save the modesty, son.  You clearly think your brain cooks some brilliant eggs. Otherwise you wouldn’t have written stuff like this:

“The conundrum in assessing a project like this is that there are the two sets of criteria by which it can be approached”

I’ll come back to that breakthrough in musical surgery, but first I want to focus on the writing itself. In any writing class giving grades based on writing, you’d be at the bottom of the curve. The only thing this review really challenged me to do was hold onto subjects long enough to reach the verb. I lost many lives. First things first: I’m going to highlight all the extra crap hedging these sentences:

“But the atmosphere of rough, old conceits scrubbed clean, with just enough dirt left to seem genuine, is ultimately a disquieting one”

“This is unfortunate because Ritter, whose numerous songwriting accolades are trumpeted in the album’s press release, is a more than capable lyricist.”

Jesse, putting the Red Sea between subject and linking verb is…not good. Contrary to popular belief in your field, a two-letter word can indeed collapse under an author’s excess. Imagine those sentences surrounded by others just as hard. That’s your review. Might make for a difficult read, huh?

Thanks to the rating stars and a few rereads, I understand you had mixed feelings about this album. If you’re on the fence about something, fine, but at least spend time looking up words that don’t need silly adverb constructions. Read these phrases:

“the borderline offensive”

“the slightly enthralling aura”

“nearly stuffy compositions”

Dude, how can you be almost offended by something? Slightly enthralled? Nearly stuffed up? Those are all adjectives that describe either/or situations. So…you really need to be on one side of the fence or the other. Sitting with the post up your butt don’t look nothing but ridiculous.

If nothing else, all these modifiers showed me how you avoid brevity like the plague. All music lice suck off other people’s art, but at least some are succinct. Nearly every sentence in your review kicks brevity’s balls. You take the long way round even down to the level of word choice. Let’s return to a previous example:

“This is unfortunate because Ritter, whose numerous songwriting accolades are trumpeted in the album’s press release, is a more than capable lyricist”

Got a couple issues with that sentence, Jesse. First off — when did America fall out of love with the word “many”? I can’t even watch People’s Court these days without hearing someone say his girlfriend cheated on him numerous times. “Numerous” is a clunky modifier and should only end a clause. Second, wouldn’t a more than capable lyricist simply be a very capable lyricist? Readability, Jesse…readability.

There’s even more I could grind here, but I’m just going to run through your musical dissection and end. Take a gander at the criteria you mentioned — you know, the ones binding your assessment of this album:

“The first is the fulfillment of the formula it attempts to emulate, in this case a kind of moody but detached wilderness lyricism, at home with nature but not down-home, smoky Americana crossed with the yellowing allure of old adventure stories.”

“The second is the creation of an individual product, and though World Away scores points for style, it also inevitably appears a little dried out and musty”

Jesse, it’s easy enough calling bullshit on your molecular analysis when you reviewed 10 albums the month of April. Writing a graduate thesis on this guy’s album in three days seems disingenuous to me. But aside from that, it did get me thinking. If anyone reads your review besides me, it’ll be someone who’s never heard the album before. So riddle me this: what’s the point of writing that for a listener curious at best? Is it for his glory…or for yours?

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Andy Kellman’s Review of “We Are Proud of Our Choices” by Ewan Pearson

Apr 20

Posted by Matt Wendus in Allmusic | 3 Comments

Artist: Ewan Pearson

Album: We Are Proud of Our Choices

Reviewer: Andy Kellman

Allmusic, 2010

Writing Disorders: Idea Fever, Toxic Tedium, Purple Hemorrhage








Longest Sentence: 61 words

Adverb Foul: “very nearly assaultive”




Andy, Allmusic reviews are essentially copy, and you’re not a copy writer. Exhibit Q:

“Yet this disc does have each one of its elder siblings’ charms: a gentle buildup and easy finish, extended trance-like passages, spongy rhythms, seemingly incongruent tracks melded with ease and restraint, almost subliminally tense transitions from menace to bliss, and even some whispered vocals, though the inner-growth monologue on Yukihiro Fukutomi’s emotive piano-house track “Open Our Eyes” is a bit much.”

Andy, I forgot to pack my jerky and now I can’t get the fire hot enough to boil the parasites out of the meltwater I cupped from the stream, further hampering my progress in the metaphor I concocted about how your criminally long sentence is like a journey through Big Sky Country with no legs on a bum wheelchair.

Dude, that silly sentence was two words SHORTER than yours. I can’t even write a sentence that long without Herculean effort against the instinct to compress. Yet nearly every review I’ve ripped on RipFork has had a sentence eclipsing 50 words. Should the Human Genome Project map the code behind that disorder, or am I just missing the majesty of a sentence stretching more than 2 feet long in 11 point Calibri?

Length is only a fraction of your problems here, Andy. Read this next bit — preferably aloud:

“The set is at its busiest from the 12th through 16th (of 18) tracks, highlighted by Xenia Beliayeva’s “Analog Effekt,” released on Systematic but worthy of 240 Volts’ uniformly stark and sleek output, and the ecstatic, fully loaded John Talabot mix of Al Usher’s “Silverhum.”

Hey, do you mind giving us an inclination of what a human thought of the album? This review reads like the result of loading MP3s into a freeware java app that translates sounds into text. Are you running Version 3.1? I hear it gives a better approximation of music’s component parts and even generates tentative context based on new algorithms. It must be…the FUTURE!

Here’s what I think, Andy. Since there’s so much music now readily available, it seems like a prime time to write like a fan, not an ESL software salesman. Maybe you should ask yourself why you’re writing about music in the first place. If your motives include dazzling readers, outpacing other writers, and writing the most tedious 250 words forgotten, I say you failed at two.

Moving on…

“While Pearson would likely be flattered to be told that this disc resembles a hybrid of Michael Mayer’s Immer (stern, dramatic; Joy Division) and Triple R’s Friends (comparatively brighter and outgoing; New Order), he might also find the description a little limiting.”

Or maybe he’d be flattered if you wrote him an email and told him what you thought of his music, good or bad. Maybe I don’t understand musicians, but this guy might feel uneasy reading a music critic’s fantasy about his reaction to a flattering comparison. How many acts are compared to 30-year-old bands every week, Andy? It loses its luster after a while, I reckon.

Andy, there’s only so much I can write about something that short, so I’m going to wrap it up. I want you to try something out though. Write about this album again in a year. If you can’t connect it to your life in a way more meaningful than the bad copy you wrote here, then you’re listening to too much music.

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Joe Stannard’s Review of “Adventures in Modern Recording” by the Buggles

Apr 12

Posted by Matt Wendus in The Quietus | 1 Comment

Artist: The Buggles

Album: Adventures in Modern Recording

Reviewer: Joe Stannard

The Quietus, 2010

Writing Disorders: Purple Hemorrhage, Idea Fever, Detachment Syndrome








Longest Sentence: 63 words

Stuffiest Phrase: “Roxy-esque themes of artifice and ennui”




Joe, most of what I read on The Quietus makes me want to watch old pro wrestling highlights just to counteract the website’s flowery poot sniffing. You really took it to another level here. I’m not even through the third paragraph and I’m already worried that YouTube clips of Ravishing Rick Rude won’t be enough to slow the poison. Look at your opening sentence:

“Never mind the rouged fops of 80s British pop, flouncing about like epileptic candyfloss stuffed into grotesque couture – let’s talk about the innovators, the auteurs, the dreamweavers.”

Okay…I wasn’t really going to mind that stuff in the first place, but whatever. I’ll roll. What’s next?

“I’m referring of course to the producers. Mike Hedges, Martin Hannett, Hugh Padgham, Steve Lillywhite and Martin Rushent can all claim to have played a part in shaping the sonic landscape of the 80s. But it was Durham-born hitmaker Trevor Horn who bestrode the decade like a myopic colossus, crafting pocket symphonies for Marc Almond, Grace Jones, Dollar, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Propaganda, Pet Shop Boys…”

Ugh. Look, I’m sure you eventually connect all this to the Buggles’ second album in some breathtaking way, but before I wade into that, let’s just see how long it took. Do you know how long it took you to mention the name of that album? Any guesses? 458 words.

Joe, that’s a lot of words, so I’m thinking maybe I made a mistake. Before I make an ass of myself ridiculing you for that level of excess, I’m going to take a quick look back at the heading so I can be sure this wasn’t titled “Densely-Packed Parade of Names from the 1980s.”

Phew, thought so. Joe, I realize The Quietus strives to deliver the longest, most viscous introductions in a field of writing ted by them, but this is absurd. From the opening word to your first mention of Adventures in Modern Recording, you name 38 different people, bands, songs, and albums. Regardless of whether they’re related, dropping that many ideas in the road doesn’t make for the smoothest ride down history’s boulevard. It’s like naming 38 species of rodent in an article about a chipmunk before mentioning the chipmunk. I’m surprised you still had room for conjunctions and prepositions in there. By the way — capitalizing genres of music in a thicket of proper nouns doesn’t really smooth things out either. How do I know “Disco” isn’t an obscure British band that benefitted from the craft of a “myopic colossus?”

When you finally get down to talking about Adventures in Modern Recording, you don’t spare much vague prose:

“The opening title song, for example, loads synthetic and acoustic instrumentation upon a skullcracking rhythm, creating a mood which is simultaneously dreamlike and hyper-alert.”

Joe, one reason I find these labored descriptions of a band’s songs so stupid is that I fail to see the purpose. It’s one thing to describe a chase scene in The Transporter, detail a conversation between protagonists in a novel, or even outline the landscape in a Monet painting in writing. It’s quite another thing to write descriptions of music like this and expect a curious reader to build a replica in his head:

“the sinister faux jazz interlude”

“rigid, gridlike beats”

“a vast, crashing wave of melodic noise crying out for a Lindstrom-style expansion”

Those things mean next to nothing, Joe, and they mean even less buried in the cores of gigantic paragraphs. If you’re going to write a persuasive essay on music, don’t you think it makes sense to include some MUSIC in there somewhere? You know, maybe throw in a hyperlink or embedded clip for those brave souls who actually stick around to read your slush past the introduction? This is the internet, after all. You can do that stuff, Joe.

When I finally reached your conclusion, I was expecting a prize of some sort or at the very least a warm meal and a beer for my perseverance. Instead, there’s this:

“We’ve established that Adventures is ahead of its time”

What exactly did I do to establish that, Joe? Oh, you meant you and another Quietus historian collaborated on this criminally tedious review and came to that conclusion? Where’s the shared credit?  Are you trying to steal the fame and fortune offered for deciphering the perceived influence of a 29-year-old album on a Swedish electronica band? You cold-blooded …

Joe, my brain is already in danger of fusing into a cube after reading this piece of plastic, so I’m just going to take the antidote and be done. I think I can cut out the rant about the phrase “pop sensibility.” I’ll let you ponder that one. Beam me up, Rick.




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Laura Snapes’ Review of “Kairos” by White Hinterland

Mar 14

Posted by Matt Wendus in The Quietus | 6 Comments

Artist: White Hinterland

Album: Kairos

Reviewer: Laura Snapes

The Quietus, 2010

Writing Disorders: Jargon Palsy, Purple Hemorrhage








Longest Sentence: 62 words

Dollar Words: Aubades, lucubrations, melismatic, diaphanous, hypnagogic

Wha Happen?: “a qualitative state of time suspended rather than a chronological march, one that exists in an ether”




Laura, were you born without a limbic system? If you’re physically capable of enjoying music, it doesn’t show. Well, that’s not true. You did suggest a margin of enjoyment at the very end of your review:

“it’s a pleasure to hear her rejoicing in the freedom of her vocal reincarnation”

Wow, that sounds like a wild dopamine rush. Did you even upturn the corners of your mouth in approval? Sigh, such a free spirit. I’m biased here, Laura, but stale as it was, that was probably the most succinct idea you translated into words. Some examples for comparison:

“Subject matter and colour spectrum taken into consideration, this record could easily have floated off into the ether of shapeless lo-fi amoebas without the appropriate anchoring.”

“Much of Kairos takes place around a dark lake in the wooded grounds of Dienel’s mind’s eye, beneath a glowing dewy orb.”

“looping patters around dubby thumps, at others jabbing and spindling with the precision of an industrial weaving machine.”

I think you need a change of venue for your thoughts, Laura. You know, you could try sculpting, soap carving, or even interpretive dance. I think I’d understand flailing and prancing about White Hinterland’s new album more than I understood the stuff you wrote.

You see, Laura, when you write such weird, abstract gibberish about an album that few people have experienced yet, you’re not exactly holding their hand on the tour. If you’d written this review two years hence after swaths of people had soaked it in, half this stuff might make sense. Now it just reads like a really emo yearbook page. Wait – my mistake. A really emo yearbook page with level 4 encryption:

“a gorgeous collection of aubades, full of the uncertainties that late night emotional lucubrations bring.”

I feel like I’m in a Chinese butcher shop, not knowing what the hell’s in front of me. Look, I get that the Quietus isn’t geared towards the grown-up kids in remedial math, but could you at least ATTEMPT to include folks who don’t carry a pocket Webster’s? What’s your angle here, Snapes? You saying only those who’ve studied the Total Codex can sit in your tree house? Well, f**k your tree house.

Piecing together what would possess someone to mold this lump of bird suet is a struggle. Conspiracy theories are now bouncing around my brain. Even though none of your writing’s ever tickled my taint, I don’t remember it being such a literary hysterectomy. I’m starting to think John Doran put you up to this. Did he refuse to publish it unless you stretched those sentences? Did he dangle your job and the option of writing four more adjectives to describe a cloud?

“In spite of the many words that have been bandied about to try and describe this new hazy, dreamy, diaphanous, gauzy, hypnagogic cloud that’s engulfed music in recent months, it seems that the Ancient Greeks coined the perfect encapsulation of all that woozes over 2000 years ago.”

Who’s been bandying the words? Sorry, I didn’t hear about that new hypnagogic cloud in passing near the water cooler. Let me know who’s been trying to describe it, though. They sound like my kind of writer. In the meantime, Laura, you might want to get your pleasure center checked out or at least take it for a spin sometime. You might learn something.

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