Hmm, I occasionally listen to Dance with God, Johnny Strobe and the acoustic version of Ameagari... I don't think Lemon Drops is too bad but I don't listen to it much, and Primer Beat is cool but ehhh.

Better than TRIAL.


That's right, folks. The Mafu says it.
Ah yeah.

Beisdes that one new album coming out from the predators, there isn't much going on with the pillows lately.

Kind of a shame. :/

Oh yeah, that's because they're taking a short rest break. They've been doing endless touring and recording for a long time now and decided to just take a short bit of a breather to just hang out and relax before diving back into it. Not a hiatus or anything, just a break from band activities to rest up, vacation sort of thing. Or something to that tune, anyway.

[quote="Mafu"]Better than TRIAL.


That's right, folks. The Mafu says it.
Ah yeah. [/quote]
Dude, that's way out of line.

Also, I wasn't aware that they were taking a break. Here's hoping that they get some good rest. Maybe this little break will help them get their shit together.

I don't think they'll get much rest, 'cause Shin is gonna be touring a bunch with The Pees, Suzuki with Kaminarigumo, Yamanaka with Predators... Seems more like they'll just be too busy with other stuff to be able to do the pillows.

I haven't listened to Trial in a while. I've listened to some Ooparts stuff recently though.

For me, the first half of the album, minus Dance With God, is just . The second half, however, minus Life Size Life, I actually like a lot.

I also still like most of Trial. Horn Again is the one that really stopped being interesting fast.

EDIT: Huh. Didn't know that first smiley would show up when I typed that, haha. Nice.

I go back to Ooparts for Dance With God, Melody, Lemon Drops, Beyond the Moon, Johnny Strobe, Ameagari, and Primer Beat. That's 7/10 tracks, and that makes it a solid album. I reiterate more soberly, fuck the haters.

I dig the whole album. The weakest track is Primer Beat.

It's their weakest album but one of the few albums I don't skip any tracks.

[quote="rockman240"]I dig the whole album. [b]The weakest track is Primer Beat[/b].

It's their weakest album but one of the few albums I don't skip any tracks.[/quote]

Now I've seen everything. Rockman and Mafu represent the unrepresented populous of IM that actually appreciates Oops-art. I've actually come to like it more as well. But for me, weakest track... Primer Beat? Nah. Not for this blackafroman.

[quote="Tidusauron12"]Oops-art.[/quote]
i c wut u did thar

[quote="rockman240"]I dig the whole album. The weakest track is Primer Beat.

It's their weakest album but one of the few albums I don't skip any tracks.[/quote]
trolling

Not trolling.

With "OOPArts" being short for Out Of Place Artifacts, I'd like to posit that Ooparts is objectively a complete failure at its own stated goal. Aside from Primer Beat's obvious departure in rhythm, sound, and performance style, many of the songs on Ooparts sound incredibly alike, to a degree that's unmatched by most other pillows albums. That is, these songs aren't out of place artifacts at all: they're so similar to each other in sound and style that many of them are entirely superfluous.

Songs on Ooparts frequently feature the same 8th-note-snare-slam drumming, the same cruddy guitar tones, and the same simplistic power-chord bashes (which also made up the most irritating, IMO, parts of Pied Piper). At least three songs in a row (Foxes, Beyond the Moon, and Johnny Strobe) are built upon the same "soft verse/LOUD POWER CHORDS, SO HEVEY/soft verse" grunge structure. One of them has horn samples, one of them is a ballad. Whatever. the pillows have done grunge before, but the sameness is accentuated here by the dumbing down of the arrangements.

One thing that Ooparts does that particularly irritates me is the way that several of the songs begin with a completely unrelated instrumental, which then stops suddenly so the real song can start. I wouldn't mind this so much if the instrumental intros didn't sound like they were building towards something much better (or at least different) than the crappy sameness that dominates the album. Pied Piper did a bit of the fakeout-intro stuff too.

Out Of Place Artifacts would have been a good title for a second B-sides compilation, or maybe for a sonically diverse album like Happy Bivouac.

Other possible title theories:
It's out of place in the pillows' otherwise generally worthwhile discography.
Lemon Drops and Primer Beat are out of place in this crapsack of an album.

(It'll probably grow on me a bit more. Maybe. Eugh.)