Friday, July 15, 2011

'Napalm Dream' by Tenement


By Kevin Toomey
Mandible Records
June 30, 2011
Rating: 4/5

Long awaited, possibly overhyped, and hard to get, but finally here. This record has been called record of the year by a few people, and even garnered comparisons to The Ergs! Taking the opinions of the Pop Punk Message Board with a grain of salt, I had to see for myself. After about five listens, I can say that this album is good. Real good. I don’t know that it sounds much like The Ergs! but I can see some similarities in song structure. “City Bus #30” is a good example of this. It starts out kind of wail-y and then really picks up around the 45-second mark. The songs are so earnest, and catchy (another similarity with The Ergs!) that it’s hard not to immediately want to listen to the album again. The only track that drags is “Death in the Family,” and I found my self skipping over this every time it came up just to get to “Schadenfreude.” I don’t really know what else to say about Napalm Dream; it’s just good midwestern pop-punk. Head over to tenement.bandcamp.com to let the album speak for itself.

11/13/2011 UPDATE: Check out a review of Tenement's new 7'', Taking Everything here.

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