A lot of albums in 2009 are hard to give long-winded opinions on because they're just plain decent and they don't really have a defining characteristic that makes the sound its own. Marmoset's new album Tea Tornado is one of those albums, but it's slightly superior to those in the category. It's indie rock, and the problem is that indie rock is such an overused term that it's to the boiling point, where it becomes nearly useless to describe a band's sound. There are guitars, drums, bass, singing, all that; it's poppy; I like it. But where does it go? What approach are these bands trying to take?
It's taken me numerous listens just to find what makes them, them. It's really difficult but there are some things you'll find that give Marmoset a certain flavor. Like the production, it's very clean but it has a very thin layer of haze on it. Maybe it's how Marmoset gets their appeal to people by using a small touch of reverb to add some subtleties to the sound. Marmoset are often classified as psychedelic but that term never comes to mind when actually hearing the music. Is everything that has acoustic guitar now considered psychedelic? Forget terms.
Tea Tornado doesn't have anything wrong with it in terms of musicianship. It's tightly orchestrated to the point where the band still knows how to have a little fun. In terms of keeping a certain sound, Marmoset just loves to experiment. They change from Wilco's "dad-rock" sound to Deerhunter's soft shoegaze tonality. The album isn't very consistent; you wouldn't recognize the band if you heard a song from it. Though, lack of consistency is what's missing in today's music. So, by today's standards, it gets a passing grade.
The album is good if you want to just sit down and listen to songs that won't really stick in your head but are relevantly fresh and fun. Will I listen to this album till the day I die? Probably not. Will I listen to it for about a week or two and occasionally stumble upon it in later years? That's a very good prediction.
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