Niklas Pivic

A nice electronic trippy-dubby album that suited me fine while working and reading.

This may sound contrite, but I'll say it anyway: the unreleased Steve Albini version of this album, recorded in 1997, is excellent. A sheer power-pop masterpiece. Some of the songs just bleed fun and love for music. Every single bit is lovely.

On the "Rockline 2003" show, someone called in and asked the band for the history behind this disc, and Bun E. Carlos gave the explanation. The "In Color" album was produced by Tom Werman, but the band always felt that Werman screwed up the album. "He made it safe for radio, but the album sounds like it was done in a cardboard box." So, in 1997, they were in the studio hanging around with Steve Albini and had… More

This is a breath of fresh soul air. There's a lot of heft here, the sentiment I get when listening to music by the likes of Can or Mozart, people who can do anything, when they've chosen to make music that is fairly simple. This is a lovely album.

This is actually a very listenable album, considering how Merzbow usually includes a lot of high-pitched treble-laden noise. Au contraire, this is low-rumbling stuff (at least during the first 20 minutes); sounds made me feel as though massive ice-blocks were dragged all around me. In a good way, actually.

I had no problems working to this music!

This album is a jam. Roubaix really turned it out.

A later version of this album includes two remixes of the main soundtrack theme, one of which is absolutely blissful: https://song.link/le-samourai-remix

The film for which this soundtrack exists is also wonderful: https://www.criterion.com/films/184-le-samourai

This reminds me of Torres but on downers. Some of the songs on this album are lovely, for example, 'Petco'. I enjoyed a lot of the interludes and ideas that made their way into the album; sudden inspiration should find its way into albums far more often.

This is a fresh breath of air. Tight, playful, polyrhythmic. What strengths!

I wrote this a couple of weeks after the album was released:

Alvvays' third album is their best yet.

In a couple of weeks, I've played this album over twenty times. Yeah. It's that good.

Alvvays don't shy away from their influences—The Smiths, shoegaze stuff, twee indie bands—but they bring great songs to the table, songs with odd chord changes, loads of melodies, no show–offy shit but rather a communal sense of wanting to do whatever makes the best song, and more melodies. I love the fact that they're using two different singers. And synths. Reliable drums. Great guitar sounds and riffs. This is some fun and great shit. I feel that Alvvays have feared nothing while… More

A really lovely and loving album by a band that has taken a lot of time to craft their sound.

Lovely, fuzzed-out, and distance-spaced reverby stoner rawk, ham-fisted and nice.