TNT

by

Tortoise

Quite simply, and without exaggeration, I think this is the best album that exists. Know that every time I review another album here and sing its praises, I think it simply doesn't compare. I think TNT a perfect album.

It feels like a complete work—it's cohesive. Every song complements its neighbours as it flows between them. No song feels out of place. No note feels out of place. No song is being carried here either. I think Ten-Day Interval and I Set My Face to the Hillside are the standout tracks but I'd be happy to hear any song on this album in isolation. I just don't think that's the way this album shines.

Something that exemplifies that for me is Jetty. I think the arrangement of La Jetée that several of the exact same people on this album recorded a few months earlier for the Isotope 217º's The Unstable Molecule is better (I might even like the solo version Jeff Parker recently released on Forfolks better), but this is the arrangement that is right for this album—any other would be out of place.

Speaking of Parker, adding him to the band adds so much. It's not like they weren't already moving toward a jazzier sound on Millions Now Living Will Never Die, but it just feels like he might have been the missing piece of the puzzle. Or maybe it's that he appeared at the perfect moment for them to make this. I like their albums before, I like their albums after. Nothing compares to this.