Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Suite(s)
Ex Libras are the latest disciple of the new prog genre, and like their primogenitors Muse and Oceansize, they're more concerned with bombastic, stadium-crushing peaks than, say, making actual music. Their debut album Suite(s) is watchfully engineered to deliver constant radio-friendly swoons. Four of the eight tracks define that heroic, fist-raised-in-defiance sound we've come to expect from modern rock bands.
According to their press kit and a few floating reviews, Ex Libras are supposed to be "pretty good live," which I don't doubt; this kind of music belongs in an amphitheater with a congregation of fans bobbing their empty heads in unity.
Suite(s) sounds as if it was recorded as one piece. It's a good idea, in theory, as Ex Libras is a band that relies on that massive, singular, discharges of energy, and what better way to capture that than to have the band play in synergy? Of course, this opens the door to endless jam-band noodling.
Like a throwaway garage-improvisation, Suite(s) is an album that erodes its sonic concepts to their bitter end. The songs begin interesting enough -- the pitter-patter breakbeats of "Radar," the ascending piano-pounding of "19:04" -- but by minute seven(!), the music has overstayed its welcome. The eight tracks are sonically and tonally of one kind, killing any chance for second-spin gratification. It's a difficult record to pay attention to and an even harder one to recommend.
Album title: Suite(s) (2009)
Artist: Ex Libras
Label: Wirebird Records
Songs: (1) Issues (2) Underachievers (3) Phat Nickers (4) Radar (5) Sun Numbers (6) Audio Video Disco (7) Discharge (8) 19:04
Here's something you might be interested in.
Suite(s)
Suite(s)
Ex Libras are the latest disciple of the new prog genre, and like their primogenitors Muse and Oceansize, they're more concerned with bombastic, stadium-crushing peaks than, say, making actual music. Their debut album Suite(s) is watchfully engineered to deliver constant radio-friendly swoons. Four of the eight tracks define that heroic, fist-raised-in-defiance sound we've come to expect from modern rock bands.
According to their press kit and a few floating reviews, Ex Libras are supposed to be "pretty good live," which I don't doubt; this kind of music belongs in an amphitheater with a congregation of fans bobbing their empty heads in unity.
Suite(s) sounds as if it was recorded as one piece. It's a good idea, in theory, as Ex Libras is a band that relies on that massive, singular, discharges of energy, and what better way to capture that than to have the band play in synergy? Of course, this opens the door to endless jam-band noodling.
Like a throwaway garage-improvisation, Suite(s) is an album that erodes its sonic concepts to their bitter end. The songs begin interesting enough -- the pitter-patter breakbeats of "Radar," the ascending piano-pounding of "19:04" -- but by minute seven(!), the music has overstayed its welcome. The eight tracks are sonically and tonally of one kind, killing any chance for second-spin gratification. It's a difficult record to pay attention to and an even harder one to recommend.
Album title: Suite(s) (2009)
Artist: Ex Libras
Label: Wirebird Records
Songs: (1) Issues (2) Underachievers (3) Phat Nickers (4) Radar (5) Sun Numbers (6) Audio Video Disco (7) Discharge (8) 19:04