Is it better to be on or be good? ("No Color" by the Dodos Album Review)

Thankfully, on the Dodos' No Color, they manage to do both.

That line is from album standout "Good," a 6-minute song that recalls the unpredictability of 2008 Visiter's "Joe's Waltz," a song with two distinct halves. While "Good" is a bit more polished, I think that its similarity to that song speaks for the entire album's style: it is a return to the form of Visiter but with more sheen and editing.

While the Dodos uncut are probably the best kind of Dodos, this actually works in the album's favor. The songs overall are much more concise than those on the band's three previous albums, but they also manage not to lose steam and are just great all the way through. "Sleep" is under 4 minutes long, nearly unheard of from the Dodos, but with its catchy chorus and featured spot from Neko Case, who also sings on "Good" and, amongst others, "Don't Try and Hide It," another highlight, the song quickly becomes one of the most memorable album.

"I cannot sleep/I cannot think/I cannot dream," sings Meric Long on "Sleep;" those lines speak well for the album, which is at first hyperactive and then, almost abruptly, sleepy and more introspective. Opener "Black Night" is raucous; 5 tracks later we have the decidedly hush "When Will You Go," which features Long's falsetto and has been bandied by critics as a highlight. The song reminds one more of Time to Die with its obvious production sheen but imbues it with the same spirit that embodies "Black Night."

The more mellow latter half of the album is not as immediately enticing, but the songs alternate between beautiful and interesting. While you'll love "Sleep" from the first play, a song like "When Will You Go" will command more listening time if only so you can discover its intricacies and attractive spots that are less readily enticing.

A song that is a personal favorite and reminds one of debut Beware of the Maniacs is "Hunting Season," which sounds bound for commercial or indie movie inclusion. Little oddities like this really show the band's ability to combine their intense percussion of old with their electric guitars and normalcy of late. It has its feet planted firmly in both camps, and the combination is interesting if subtle. It probably won't stand out for other people as much as it does for this reviewer, but the Maniacs vibe is much appreciated in a world that seems to think the band started with Visiter.

"Companions" is a real grower but ends up being a stand-out track. The classical-sounding guitar in the beginning really makes the song, which sounds laden with reverb and other production effects that you wouldn't really hear on their first two albums. It's the most interesting track on the album, stylistically; it sounds quite unlike anything else the band has done before. It's an experimental sort of song that really pays off and shows off the band's talent and versatility.

Overall, No Color combines the best of the band's previous albums to make a holistic, interesting, and engaging package that you will want to listen to again and again. Unlike Time to Die, it's not at all a disappoint. The Dodos still have plenty of color, and they are both "on" and "good.

No Color gets 4 and a half Neko Case guest vocals out of 5.

Download: "Good" (It's an .m4a so be prepared for that)
Also check out: "Sleep," "Black Night," "Companions"
Buy No Color here.

P.S. Sorry this review was suckish but I'm tired. The Dodos deserve better than this. Please check them out.
P.P.S. also lawl I really love "Good." The past two post titles have come from it. It's awesome.

Could you be certain what you've been searching won't be late?

Still digging the Dodos' No Color. I hope to get a review up before the end of the month. Senior year wasn't supposed to be this STRESSFUL, second semester!

SXSW was last week (or so) and the Dodos were there livening up the joint. Thankfully, AOL taped the whole thing for us non-goers to indulge in. Here's their entire, No Color-heavy set. (Can I just say that, if you have time to play both B-side "All Night" AND Time to Die's "Longform," couldn't you find time for something from Visiter? You have four albums out now, guys. Really. You got to indulge us fans a bit more.)

Relevant Things Going On in My Life Right Now #6

So, a couple of things. Obviously I have a new layout. Yay! (?) I really liked the old one but I feel like this one goes more with the spirit and the tone of this very silly web log. Second, that above is Johnny Weir. Is it just me or does he look slightly like Christian Bale there? Anyway, I just watched this documentary about him, Pop Star on Ice. It has a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes but I actually enjoyed it, even if it was mostly because Johnny is hilarious. His Russian accent is awesome.

Other than that, a lot has happened since my last post, so I thought I'd do one of these to cover everything. (Also I have a Snow Day, A-STINKING-GAIN, and I want to do other things and this is easy-ish.)

• The NGP: No, it's not some kind of government branch that's out to get you. It's the name of what is more commonly known as the PSP2! The NGP was unveiled last week and it basically is a fatter PSP with two joysticks and better graphics. This is enough for many people to rejoice over, but I remain unconvinced. It's not that I don't think the NGP looks cool, because it definitely does, and it's not that I don't think it will be successful, because I know there are a lot of people who want to buy it; it's just that, in terms of innovation, it seems like it's lacking in that extra "wow" factor. I mean, I have a PS3 to play my PS3 games. I don't need a portable for that. What it means for me, though, is that soon the PSP will finally be low enough in price that I can buy one! Yay!
• Jesse Eisenberg on SNL: I am a Jesse Eisenberg fan, and his episode of SNL was the funniest in ages. I watched the entire show, live, and that is something I never do! It was worth it, though. The best sketches were the Don't Forget the Lyrics! one, which awkwardly didn't get as many laughs from the audience as it did from me; the one with Bill Hader as Herb, the old and bitter newscaster who kept hitting everyone in the face (I'm sorry but his constantly hitting everyone in the face with the microphone was extremely amusing, especially when Bill Hader started cracking afterwards); the Lonely Island song, "Do the Creep;" and the Bride of Blackenstein, which featured the best line of the night from Jesse Eisenberg: when asked where he got the bride's mouth, he replied, "From a ho who didn't know her place!" Weekend Update was also amusing thanks to Kenan as Tyler Perry: "My best friend is Oprah!" It wasn't all kittens and cupcakes, though: the fake commercial was incredibly offensive and all of Kristen Wiig's turns were awful. But Jesse Eisenberg was able to bring his antsy energy and host a fun show. Watch the episode here.
• The new series of Skins: It premiered over in jolly old England last Thursday. I watched it over the weekend; it was my first time watching the British Skins in a decent amount of time, since I never watched the third or fourth series besides some clips. Okay, so there were definite shades of Mean Girls, but Franky and Grace and Rich and maybe Alo (which is a stupid name) seem awesome. Matty had potential also but his acting was terrible. I'm excited to see what happens this season. Err, series.
• "The Trapeze Swinger": is a beautiful song, by Iron & Wine. He wrote it for a movie that stars Topher Grace (and, disgustingly, Dennis Quaid):
• No Color by The Dodos: I posted about them last month, but today you can now pre-order their album! There are four different options: digital-only, CD, vinyl, or deluxe, which includes all of the above plus a shirt, a poster, and some other stuff. Also, you can get any of the first three options with a shirt, and the CD and the record also come with digital downloads. I'm conflicted over which package to get. I'm thinking CD, but I kind of want the shirt as well. However, the CD plus the shirt is $30, and that's way too much. I think I'm just going to get the CD. Also, when you pre-order you get a download of the first track, "Black Night," which you can listen to on the site. I listened to it and it is INSANE. In a good way! So. Do that.
• Bioshock: I got it for Christmas and my friend and I started playing it yesterday. Okay, I mostly just watched and yelled, "Welcome to the Circus of Values!" But I got to play a little. It's fun times, but also really scary. I'm not good with scary things. Thankfully, I got over my fear of the screaming, gory splicers kind of quickly. Sort of. Also, the game has the most stupidly easy trophies out of any PS3 game I've ever played. Awesome.
• RuPaul's Drag Race: So the Johnny Weir show was on Logo, and now RuPaul's show is on and we haven't bothered to change the channel. I'm not really paying attention but I see that SUTAN, the make-up artist from America's Next Top Model, is competing, and that is REALLY COOL. His drag queen persona is Raja. This should be fun. Also, watching the show is reminding me of how Tobias would mix up his pronouns a lot in Arrested Development. I'm planning on rewatching that soon, maybe when the AV Club starts its alleged Classic recapping of it.
• Sundance: This year's Sundance has been one of the most-hyped in years, in part because of the wealth of nominations movies from last year's have earned recently (see: Winter's Bone!). I'm going to write an article about it later today; maybe I'll post it on here sometime. I'll at least get around to talking about the movies that intrigued me. One of my life dreams is to go to a film festival (yeah, I totally dream big, right?), so I hope to attend Sundance one day. Maybe as press!
• Zombieland: is sitting in my DVD drive. I've been meaning to watch it for over a year now. Today, I finally will. So I'm going to go do that.

Have a splendid day.

One One One One One

You may or may not know that one of my favorite bands is The Dodos. I've talked about them before but it needs to be said again and again: they are great. The band is a duo-turned-trio-turned-duo-again, but they make so much sound between the two of them that it's really quite hard to believe sometimes.

Their last album came out in fall of 2009, and while some of the songs on it were as good as the songs on their previous albums, Visiter and Beware of the Maniacs, like "This is a Business," "Fables," and the lovely "Troll Nacht" overall it was a major disappointment.

However! The wonderful guys who make up the band, Meric and Logan, just announced that their fourth album will be released on MARCH 15TH. Historically that day has been very bad; Caesar was killed that day, and I usually end up getting really sick for some reason. The Dodos are trying to change that by releasing their sure-to-be-amazing No Color.

Starting February 1st, you can pre-order it from their website, dodosmusic.net. For now you can check out a cool little video of them working on it in the studio.

I AM SO EXCITED. And hopefully you are too. I'll consider writing a review of it once I get it (through totally legal means! These boys deserve all of the money they can get, darnit, and I want to help!) in March.

Relevant Things Going On in My Life Right Now #5

[Note: images aren't working for me at the moment. Sorry. Sad face.]

I haven't written a post in awhile-ish. Sorry. Lazy. I also haven't written one of these kinds of posts in a LONG time. But now I am. Aren't you lucky?

Today I got a Mew and now I am quite confident that I will become the greatest Pokemon master EVER. If you have HeartGold or SoulSilver then get on the Mystery Gift right now and download Mew! Do it! Now! Right now! But then please come back and read the rest of the post...

Which starts now!:

• 30 Rock Live: This is major and I probably should have written a review, but I didn't and oh well. Did you see it? Oh, excellent? Did you love it? Gasp! Me too! It was great and I enjoyed it immensely. It had a series finale kind of vibe but it was a fun experiment regardless. Although I think maybe this should have been the series finale -- not now, of course! Years from now, they should have done this episode. But whatever, I enjoyed it now. I didn't get to see the West Coast version but luckily someone has compiled a video of the differences between the two. I'm not sure which one I like better; they're both pretty amazing. Maybe the East Coast version, because I'm biased:
   
• Justin Bieber's autobiography: If you can even call it that. It's even more hilarious than I would have thought it'd be, though. Choice line: “There are lots of things I really like besides girls. Like pizza. And pranking. And CHUCK NORRIS.” Obviously this thing was ghost-written when I was in middle school. Biebs has been ready for this for years.
• The long tracking shot from Atonement: I loved the book but wasn't as big of a fan of the movie. I especially conked out during the Dunkirk scenes; unfortunately that meant that I missed on this very, very long tracking shot. I think tracking shots are the absolute coolest; this one especially! Watch it here.
• Cathy is over: Y'know, she definitely is a ton like Liz Lemon. "Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! Ack!" Love it. People always complained about how whiny and annoying Cathy was but I always kind of liked it. I recently watched the EMMY AWARD-WINNING animated special (in which Cathy is voiced by Pepper Ann!) and I actually liked it a lot. It's sad that it seems like the newspaper comics industry is sort of dying out; there isn't anything new coming in and older things are dying out. I wonder what will happen.
• Songs from commercials: I usually don't listen to songs that I heard first on commercials because it's hard to disassociate them with the commercials, but I've been listening a lot to "All Summer" from a recent Converse commercial (that actually creeps me the heck out) and "Blogspot" (BLOGSPOT OH EM GIZZLE) by Paul and the Patients from a Target commercial. They're both really good in their own right and I think that the visuals in the commercials don't distract me from the songs. (Also, if I hear songs that I already know in commercials or in Sears like I did yesterday then I actually want to listen to them more. Weird, isn't it? I heard "Fools" by the Dodos on a beer commercial and it made me want to listen to the song again. And I heard "Fables," also by the Dodos, in Sears yesterday and got super-excited. It's super-exciting!
• Friday night's episode of Freaks and Geeks: Please let me continue to live in my little bubble where this show still airs weekly, okay. There are only 2 episodes left for IFC to show and it makes me a little sad, especially since yesterday's episode was so good. You can watch it in many a part starting here.
• Sweaters: This is random and irrelevant (UH OH) but I love sweaters. That is all.

Such is life. Life goes on. Things like that. Now, back to looking at my kitty. Whoopee!

We'll just stay in our homes, in our homes, in our homes!

The Take-Away Show is one of the greatest concepts to ever come out of the Internet, I think.

The Take-Away Show (or "le Concert a Emporter") was created by La Blogotheque, a popular French music blog. Here is how they define it:

Every week, we invite an artist or a band to play in the streets, in a bar, a park, or even in a flat or in an elevator, and we film the whole session. Of course, what makes the beauty of it is all the little incidents, hesitations, and crazy stuff happening unexpectingly. Besides, we do not edit the videos so they look perfectly flawless, instead we keep the raw sound of the surroundings. Our goal is to try and capture instants, film the music just like it happens, without preparation, without tricks. Spontaneity is the keyword.

Does that not sound amazing? Because it is.

Call me a hipster (although I will deck you something awful if you do), but one of my favorite bands is The Dodos. They're not really that hipster-y, though, at least, I don't think they are. Anyway, they make "freak folk," which is basically just really high-energy folk music. It involves yelling, but the yelling is cool. The drumming is also insaaaaane, as is the guitar playing.

I thought I had seen the majority of the worthwhile Dodos videos until I checked again last night and found that Current.tv, one of my most favorite TV channels that I don't have, had partnered with La Blogotheque last August (!!!) to create an AMAZING 20 minute Take-Away Show with the Dodos in San Francisco!

Set list:

1. Beards

2. Joe's Waltz (Download)

3. Fools

4. Horny Hippies

Nice mix of Visiter stuff and Beware of the Maniacs stuff, yay. "Horny Hippies" and "Joe's Waltz" are the stand-out performances, so if you don't want to watch the whole thing (and shame on you if you don't) then at least watch those two. Although Joe's Waltz is seven minutes long. But still!

Here are some other cool Take-Away Shows:

Guillemots - "Made-Up Lovesong #43" (Download)

The dressing like a hobo theme continues from the Dodos video into this one! Tee-hee. That was a joke. I really like the location. It's so perfect for this video. And I like how the camera guy runs away at the end. Or do I? It's actually pretty weird. But, like, "ha-ha" weird. Not like "I think that man is a mass murderer in the making" weird. Anyway.

Ra Ra Riot - "Dying is Fine"

Ra Ra Riot is a band that you'd think would suck live, mainly because lead singer Wes' voice is kind of...it has its quirky charms, let's put it that way. But this actually sounds really excellent, a lot like the album version. And you gotta love the violins.

Bloc Party - "This Modern Love" (Download)

Once again, Kele from La Fiesta de Bloc is someone who you would think wouldn't sound so great live, but he does, and it's acoustic, too! I luuuurve this song. Especially the "Jump left/right" parts. And he makes those parts sound so meaningful! Not that they weren't originally, but you know what I mean. He does a heartfelt rendition.

Arcade Fire

Set list:

1. Neon Bible

2. Wake Up

Yeah, this one's pretty long, but it's probably the single most popular Take-Away Show, after the Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver ones. The Dodos one is still better, though! But, ahem, I like what was written about this on the site:

We knew that the Take Away Show with Arcade Fire wouldn’t be like the others. The project was made for them because they’re of a different kind, a different essence. We had spent the afternoon with them when suddenly we realized, in a flash: “yes, this group is different.”
We had been playing the role of “outsider” the entire day, like a foreign body that latches onto the daily grind of these magnificent musicians. We had to adapt, through astonishment and wonder, as the band took up their instruments and started to play. But Arcade Fire didn’t take us as outsiders. It all seemed to unfold naturally: we entered into their logic as they awaited us and eventually swallowed us up. It was now Win Butler’s Take Away Show, and we followed.

Win Butler is, of course, Arcade Fire's leading man. I really like the part where they walk into the stadium into the GIGANTIC crowd, and then they just swing "Wake Up" like it's nothing into a megaphone. Wouldn't it be just so cool to be in that crowd, to witness that? ("REACHES AND TOUCHES MY HAND!" yaaay that part)

I would love to see any Take-Away Show. For people not in the know, it could just seem like particularly bold street performers doing their thing, but to see a band you really like just walking around and singing without a care in the world, I just think that's the coolest.

So let's dance!

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