Disappointment... in the plural form too.

Time to get back into the swing of things. It’s been a weird week, and a disappointing one at that. Metallica? Attaining good reviews? From sources I adore and respect?

Shit.

Half of the We-Verb staff is upset about this, only because this means that she will have to conduct a ‘second opinion’ of Death Magnetic… meaning that she has to actually listen to the damn thing.

So in the spirit of being disappointed, here are my top 5 hyped-up disappointments:

Band of Horses- This band was the result of two members of Carissa’s Wierd [sic] wandering off and creating ‘Everything All The Time’, which was one of the most exciting things about 2006. The sweeping instrumental movements tinged with sadness, like night-driving through the thick forests of the Pacific Northwest. Combine that with desperate and innocent vocals caressed with the perfect amount of delay to make my heart slap back and forth in my chest.
Music that moves me, for god’s sake! Yes! I’m in! It was the first CD I had bought since I was employed at a record store (which was 2005… if anyone asks, I have no idea how I acquired music within that timeframe).

2007, rumors of a new Band of Horses record. Yay! Only, Mat Brooke (the main instrumentalist from Carissa’s Wierd) is no longer with the band. Um, ok… maybe it’s still good?
Nope, what we got was “There Is A Ghost in My House”. The voice does nothing without the sweeping background music to back it up, the result is a whiney, dare I say it… emo… clusterfuck of annoying.

Bloc Party- What can I say? Your 2004 EP was rad. It was hip. It felt earthmoving,… at the time. Little did I know, you were Gang of Four rip-offs that never developed into your own sound. Stop making boring albums with equally boring covers. I used to have hope for you, but now you are no better than the mongoloid infested Vampire Weekend. You make me shudder with disgrace that your music is legal. Which reminds me...

Vampire Weekend- As my beloved iLm so delicately put it; You are the Arctic Monkeys of 2008…. Which means you’re a piece of dust floating in space that happened to catch a flicker of light from a distant star for just a moment. You mean nothing, and your mere mention in music news was pure luck. You’re worthless and I would rather lose a portion of my frequency range of hearing than listen to your record.

Primal Scream- Ok, so I also could have put Oasis, Blur, or Pulp in this placeholder as well. They’re all early 90’s British bands that seemed like they were the children that would grow up to change music for the better. But unlike the 3 alternatives, Primal Scream had a solidly mixed album (Screamadelica, much?) as well as the mold-shattering 180 record(XTRMNTR). They’ve released two albums in the past three years, the first whose name I can’t be bothered with, their 2008 disaster is titled ‘Beautiful Future’. The prophecy fulfills itself if your definition of a beautiful future is “typical virtual instrument filler with repetitive lyrics that make me wish an asteroid crashes into the exact location that Bobby Gillespie is currently standing”.

South- This may be my own private disappointment. You guys produce your own material, of which I am in awe of, and absolutely adore you for this fact. You have morphed between records from mandolin-playing troubadours to honoring the good parts of New Order. Your 2008 offering ‘You Are Here’… kind of boring. I promise I will try to listen to it more, but really, I expected more from you guys. I don’t want to say it, but my heart did break just the tiniest bit.

Honorable mention to my Disappointment Fest- Radiohead… but we have an entire entry planned for these guys, and I dare not ruin the surprise.