{"id":41495,"date":"2009-05-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/cool-is-just-a-number-ep\/"},"modified":"2009-05-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-06T00:00:00","slug":"cool-is-just-a-number-ep","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/cool-is-just-a-number-ep\/","title":{"rendered":"Cool Is Just A Number (EP)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify\">I Fight Dragons dons superhero tee shirts for photo shoots, list video game systems in their instrumental repertoire, and blend Atari-esque sound effects with power-pop in a relatively new genre called Nintendo rock. Their music evokes the feeling of being inside a video game.<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Sounds like a gimmick, right? There\u2019s no way a band that tacks on sound effects seemingly pulled from <i>Super Mario Bros. 3 <\/i>can transcend novelty status. This reeks of more schtick than <i>Hey You, Pikachu!<\/i> or the Nintendo Power Glove of 1989.<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify\">But what makes these <st1:city w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Chicago<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> scenesters remarkable is not the concept, but the <i>execution<\/i> of the concept. They completely circumvent novelty and somehow find a way to make NES-rock a more than legitimate genre. This isn\u2019t just a slight recast of Depeche Mode-style electro-punk either; IFD lay the digital decadence on thick, giving it just as much face time as the guitars \u2013 which, by themselves, are as chunky and catchy as Micro-Goombas. Brian Mazzaferri\u2019s vocals resemble a less refined Chris Collingwood (of Fountains Of Wayne), and the choruses hang around your head long after the headphones. Even without electronic ornamentation, IFD would make a fine alternative to The Hold Steady.<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The songs follow a logical and fluent sequencing, suggesting that IFD are ready for full-length albums. In opener \u201cThe Faster The Treadmill,\u201d they mesh 8-bit sound effects quite nicely with a piano, throw in some power-pop guitar chords, and supercharge the chorus. The result is something both innovative and cohesive. The lone ballad on <i>Cool Is Just A Number<\/i> provides an appropriate ending. Despite its tacky lyrics, the warm and glowing synths and frail acoustic guitar radiates a kind of nerdiness as the music slowly builds like frost inching up a windowpane. Finding the pathos in video game music \u2013 pretty good for a couple of guys and a gal who like Nintendo and dress up in superhero shirts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":29876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8393],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-41495","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-i-fight-dragons","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41495","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\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41495"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}