This is another of those reviews that require me to experiment
\nwith an alternate mindset. Despite the fact I’ve never heard of
\nthem, The Frames are apparently one of the biggest things in
\nIreland, roots-rockers with a definite lo-fi sound. A web search by
\nthis reviewer (desperate for some information, as the home page for
\ntheir record label, ZTT, refused to load) led to a lot of other
\nreviews, but very little hard and fast information.<\/p>\n
Apparently the Frames are the Next Big Thing in Irish rock and
\nroll, heirs to the throne currently occupied by U2’s overblown hype
\n(soon to become U2’s rotting corpse). They are touted in various
\nonline publications as being Nirvana with brains, the Byrds with a
\nnew millennium sensibility, and Pavement with better lyrics. For
\nall I know, there may be a review somewhere that claims
\nDance The Devil\u2026<\/i> can cure cancer. Wouldn’t surprise
\nme.<\/p>\n
But, O Ye Faithful “Daily Vault” Readers, remember Rule #47;
\nwhere there is hype, there is probably something lacking in the
\nreal product. And while the Frames may be occasionally pleasant to
\nlisten to, good listener press and guitars tuned down half a step
\ndoes not a modern classic make.<\/p>\n
The Frames aren’t bad, really, but they aren’t great. They seem
\nto have very little in their catalog that can be called original;
\nas I listened to
\nDance The Devil\u2026<\/i>, I spent a lot of time going “Gosh,
\nthis sounds like (Nirvana\/Pavement\/The Byrds\/The Foo Fighters\/Smash
\nMouth\/Live\/The Smithereens\/et al)”. There are occasional moments of
\nreal creativity – “Perfect Opening Line”, “The Stars Are
\nUnderground”, the tongue-in-cheek “Rent Day Blues”, and the album’s
\ndriving close “Dance The Devil Back Into His Hole”.<\/p>\n
Sadly, though, these few sparks of promise mostly drown under
\nderivative tracks like “Hollocaine” (Trent Reznor beats up Michael
\nPenn), “Seven Day Mile” (Vertical Horizon takes a lot of Valium and
\ncovers INXS’s “Never Tear Us Apart”), “Neath The Beeches” (look,
\nma, I can be soulful and just play acoustic guitar too), and “Star
\nStar” (I don’t know what it is, but shoot it and move on).<\/p>\n
\nDance The Devil\u2026<\/i> shows that Glen Hansard and The
\nFrames have talent. The problem is, they spend too much of it
\ntrying to be someone else, and uncanny mimicry combined with an
\nability to tune your guitar a half-step down isn’t quite
\nenough.<\/p>\n
I hope The Frames take a long, hard look at their own music,
\ndisbelieve their own hype, and come up with something worthy of
\ntheir potential. Of course, I hoped that for U2, too, and look what
\nthat got us. If you like this sort of music and have an extra slot
\nin your CD changer and it isn’t too expensive, go ahead and pick up<\/p>\n
Dance The Devil\u2026<\/i>. Otherwise, don’t waste your time
\nand money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":25612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6450],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-36818","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-frames","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36818"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36818"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}