Pinback - This is a Pinback CD
(Cuttyshark)
This album has now been out for over a year, and I've probably listened to
it a hundred times or more. However, I only just recently got my hands on
the European version which has two extra tracks unavailable elsewhere.
Pinback has garnered a good deal of praise, and a number of fans from this
album. "Loro" and "Tripoli" were both released as singles and are arguably
the best songs on the album. "Tripoli" certainly has one of the best vocal
melodies Rob Crow has written, and "Loro" is a great mixture of everything
great about both he and Zack's writing styles. Really, I would be hard
pressed to pick a favorite song, but every time I listen to it, I think the
last track, "Montaigne," is what keeps me listening to this time after time.
It ends the album so solidly that I can't help but push play again.
The two
extra tracks on the European version are "Versailles" and "Byzantine."
"Byzantine" slides in easily sounding right at home with the fake drums,
melodic bass, and downbeat songwriting built around brilliantly crafted vocal
melodies. "Versailles" on the other hand, doesn't "slide in" quite as
easily. It's a very Zack-heavy song, with mostly piano and vocals, and some
guitar played in a very unobtrusive way. It doesn't fit in as smoothly
because it is quite easily the best song on the album. It's very simple,
but still carries all the emotion the other songs on the album have. This
song makes the US version much less worth buying.
This album was already
pretty high on my all time best albums list before I heard the import
version, which is much better. The extra cost to get this is well worth it.
|
