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Album Review: Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us (Graveface)

black-moth-cover-eating-usReviewing a Black Moth Super Rainbow record is ultimately kind of a ridiculous proposition.  After all, this is a band that essentially puts out the same record over and over, release after release (Pitchfork, in fact, leveled this very criticism at the band in a recent review).  In the hands of many bands, this would most definitely be a bad thing…but criticisms like that just don’t work here. So, the news is: this is more of the same.

And I, for one, certainly couldn’t be happier.

The same overloaded analog drum machine rhythm tracks, vocodered references to flowers, sunshine, and summer, and mellotron flute sounds abound.  New textures like soft-synth strings, banjos, cleaner acoustic guitars, and producer Dave Fridmann’s staples (such as big, overloaded drum sounds) certainly tweak the traditional BMSR listening experience, but overall the production is not a significant departure from previous releases.

Like previous releases, BMSR continues to serve both head and heart in equal portions: Eating Us works as both barely audible background fodder and close headphone study material (I’ve even caught my 11 year-old and 8 year-old whistling the tunes after a few listens in the car).  In short, irresistible stuff.  Here’s “Twin of Myself,” a bouncy, inviting three minutes and twenty-one seconds of sunshine:

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MP3: BMSR – Twin of myself

Another standout track invites the “perfect soundtrack for summer” tag, as cliched as it might be.  ”Smile the Day After Today” tickles those neurons that make you remember warm days at the beach, or riding your bike with your friends after school in early spring.

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MP3: BMSR – Born on a day the sun didn’t rise

Titles containing odd juxtapositions continue, conjuring disparate images of the sweet working in concert with, say, the solid (“Iron Lemonade”), or mixing the menacing with the child-like (“Dark Bubbles”).  A new title twist is the overtly lysergic “The Fields Are Breathing,” which perhaps plays BMSR’s hand a bit too openly, abandoning the subtle for the obvious with slightly less artful results.

In summary, don’t expect anything new from Eating Us, just more of the same predictable, everyday, humdrum wonderfulness that BMSR turns out in seemingly effortless fashion, release after release.

P.S.: BMSR leader Tobacco remixed Baltimore rapper Height’s “Baltimore Highlands,” which proves that BMSR can impose their signature sound on virtually any genre with great success.

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MP3: Height With Friends – Baltimore Highlands (Tobacco Remix)

Label: Graveface Records

Releaste Date: May 26 2009

Track List:
Born On A Day The Sun Didn’t Rise (free mp3)
Dark Bubbles
Twin Of Myself
Gold Splatter
Iron Lemonade
Tooth Decay
Fields Are Breathing
Smile The Day After Today
The Sticky
Bubblegum Animals
American Face Dust

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2 Responses to “Album Review: Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us (Graveface)”

  1. pasta says:

    Nice review Matt. I completely agree that BMSR is one of those bands that probably won’t change their sound that much between albums but I wouldn’t want them too really. Love that Height remix as well. the video for Dark Bubbles is insane.
    http://www.graveface.com/bmsr_darkbubbles/
    And the Hood Internet did a great mashup mixtape of Aesop Rock and Tobacco
    http://www.thehoodinternet.com/2008/09/hood-internet-vs-tobacco-aesop-rock.html

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