The contemporary crowning of drum machines, samplers, and synthesizers have led to a brigade of block-rocking beats, each successive blast becoming louder, leaner, and meaner. Meanwhile, Pinback create a more laid-back ... more »blend of pop music, augmenting gentler acoustic sounds with contemporary technology. The result is rainy-day music for the next millennium. The catchy fingerpicking on "Hurley," bound with a simple snare and bass, recalls early Folk Implosion; all snowy sighs and melancholy melody, it's easily the disc's strongest track. A couple of cuts are so nonthreatening they recede into soft-rock background music, but the multi-instrumentalist duo Armistead Burwell Smith IV (formerly of Three Mile Pilot) and Rob Crow deliver a mostly satisfying bouquet of thoughtful, somewhat spooky electro-emo pop. --Jason Josephes« less
The contemporary crowning of drum machines, samplers, and synthesizers have led to a brigade of block-rocking beats, each successive blast becoming louder, leaner, and meaner. Meanwhile, Pinback create a more laid-back blend of pop music, augmenting gentler acoustic sounds with contemporary technology. The result is rainy-day music for the next millennium. The catchy fingerpicking on "Hurley," bound with a simple snare and bass, recalls early Folk Implosion; all snowy sighs and melancholy melody, it's easily the disc's strongest track. A couple of cuts are so nonthreatening they recede into soft-rock background music, but the multi-instrumentalist duo Armistead Burwell Smith IV (formerly of Three Mile Pilot) and Rob Crow deliver a mostly satisfying bouquet of thoughtful, somewhat spooky electro-emo pop. --Jason Josephes
"When I first heard these two on NPR, I thought I had heard thier sound before. I was surprised and delighted to find something so creative and fresh as this CD. I find myself humming thier overlays all day long. Very good hooks with layer upon layer of harmonic honey. Come eat it up."
Magic Web of Cords
R. Wilmesherr | St. Louis, MO USA | 02/12/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I've been an avid follower of Pinback for two years now. They are NOT the kind of band that you have to listen for awhile to get into the groove of them. Once you unwrap that CD case and pop it in, it goes straight to you body. You realize that your bobbin' your head and walking around the house with the momentum of the songs. Pinback is great chill, drive and relax music. However, they are not to relaxed to where you get bored with it. They throw a few songs in there to get your blood moving. Tempo and rythm in their music is exceptional. If you value gutair and bass going up and down differently but combining themselves perfectly, this is THE band for you.
Pinback uses deep cords and tunes with bass and gutair to hit alot of points.
One thing is that you will always know a pinback song. They have a sound that is similar in all their songs but they change it just enough to allow a great album, and albums. Thanks!
"
Magic from out of nowhere
Joachim Lyssens | Leuven, Belgium | 11/24/1999
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Pinback are in fact 2 musicians from other bands: one of 3 Mile Pilot and one of Heavy Vegetables. They join together on this truly fantastic disk, which has been entertaining me for the last 4 weeks now. I'm getting addicted to it, and each time I hear this CD I love it more and more. I sincerely hope that Pinback will get the chance to make more of this stuff. By far the best debut album in years."
W00t
R. Fortier | Bellingham, MA United States | 12/02/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This album does nothing but put you in an awe inspired trance. This is a CD you put in your player and then don't have to worry about taking it out since no one seems to ever get sick of hearing.The first song, Tripoli, has to be amongst one of the best first songs i have heard and is a great introduction to a great cd. The rest of the songs are alot more mellow, but nothing short of beautiful. Pinback is a melodious, downbeat, and mellow band. And this cd deffintly shows all of those characteristics in an incredible way. For anyone who enjoys vocals and extremely well executed harmony, then you will probably like this L.P."
This must be one of my favourite albums of 1999
Peter Soetens | Mechelen, Provincie Antwerpen Belgium | 09/17/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"A few times a year you can find an album that is totally unpretencious, straight, honest and yet extremely good. While listening to all 12 songs on this album, you can hear that the artists (Rob Crowe & Zach Smith) make music because they love to do so and not for the money (unlike many others).The album consists of some really great songs (like Tripoli, Loro,Crutch,Chaos Engine,etc.). These songs all build up slowly and all consist of several layers that fit together nicely. The bass-lines are truly great and the vocals are calm, rather low-key but certainly not annoying.This CD certainly came as a wonderful surprise to me. It just becomes better and better each time you listen to it ! If you like for example Elliot Smith or Yo La Tengo (And then nothing turned...) you will probably like this too. I find it difficult to compare this group with other music...it's just moving, slow-going modest rock-music or what two great musicians can do with little instruments... BUY THIS if you know you have good taste !"