On Vacation
5 Rue Christine
2005
Rating: 7.5 rice crispy treats out of 10
Let me get this off of my chest to start – while thematically I can understand the desire for The Robot Ate Me to put this on two discs, it still drives me batty that the whole album is barely 40 minutes long but it is on 2 CDs…it’s like a double EP album or something, completely retarded. That said - the music is actually pretty damn fantastic. I have been a fan of The Robot Ate Me for since I heard the first record “They Ate Themselves”, and as great as that debut was it pales in comparison to this record. The kitchen sink instrumentation will get this band compared to any number of Elephant 6 groups, the melancholy and despair will make you think of Grandaddy, and the overall sound probably fits best with the Microphones, but it doesn’t really sound like any of those bands mentioned. The first disc is the quirky kid brother, full of references to genocide and Hitler and god knows what else…the whole thing sounds as if the singer of The Robot Ate Me were being backed by an Optigon (which may be the case as he lives in the same town, San Diego, where Optigonally Yours is from). The second disc is a much more heartbreaking and personal outing, with less screwball instrumentation and more heart-on-sleeves musicianship (minus the obvious “emo”ness that sort of description draws up). I highly recommend this record, one of the best things I’ve heard all year.
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