High Places

By only

Friday July 18, 2008

Our Montreal trip was incredible. What a city! We ate good, smoked good, spoke French, explored the neighborhoods, climbed a mountain. Amazing. Except for one thing:

On Tuesday night we went to see a show that I was really excited about. Abe Vigoda, some band I’d never heard of and No Age were in town playing a small venue. A ton of people have been cheerleading both of those bands lately – especially the live show – and I considered myself fortunate to have wound up in Montreal at the same time as them. The fact that I’ve spent my summer in relative seclusion miles away from city life made the prospect of seeing awesome live music all the more enticing.

Unfortunately, our dinner of bone marrow and butter at L’Express ran a bit late. We missed Abe Vigoda and got there just in time for the band I hadn’t heard of and didn’t care about. And of course, they were horrible. A guy and a girl sloppily playing a drum pad and a play button while singing in a boring, incoherent monotone, we decided to get some fresh air after two songs, mostly because it sucked. If I had found out this was their first live show, I would have believed it. Apparently, not the case. 

As we walked outside, I got hit with a bomb. “I guess Pitchfork just gives Best New Music to anybody these days,” muttered my friend. I corrected him, explaining that we hadn’t been watching No Age. But then he corrected me. “No, that was High Places from New York. They got Best New Music a few months ago.” My brain froze. That had to be impossible. I had to know the truth! We hastily found some internet, found the review, and there it was. This horrible band’s debut ‘album’ (a collection of ‘stray compilation tracks’ released as MP3 on eMusic) had received an 8.3. Best New Music. The most coveted award in the world!

This kind of thing doesn’t make me angry like it used to. I find it more hilarious than I do enraging. However, Pitchfork’s review for High Places’ album is some of the most unnecessary, pseudo-academic, long-winded bullshit I’ve encountered in a long fucking time – over the top even for a publication that has firmly embraced and epitomized circumlocution since its inception. To illustrate:

High Places’ trunk-rattling impulses are juxtaposed with a spacious, almost tranquil atmosphere, with Rob Barber’s percussion chiming and floating rather than physically hitting, and Mary Pearson’s sweetly flat vocals layered to the point that her lyrics often become indistinguishable. That blur makes High Places’ music hypnotic: Pearson chatters away like a light-headed kid on the playground on one song and intones a mantra on the next, and it’s only then that you notice how both forms operate on the same principle: repetition induces calm. (Full disclosure: Pearson’s sister is a former Pitchfork employee.)

Full disclosure: That entire paragraph is two sentences long! And all it says is that they sound sloppy and not very interesting! Needless to say, reading those two sentences ruined my entire night. No matter how good No Age were about to be, I was destined to hate them. I spared myself the pain and stayed home. It was better that way. 

Special thanks goes out to Mike Powell, the life-wasting asshole who wrote that stupid review. I hear his mom is a real cup of piss.