Reviews
Rafter
10 Songs
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Add to del.ico.us.Review Date: 2007-01-06
Every week or two our editor Dan sends out a list of promos we’ve received, and then we all choose which ones we want to review, based on the record company’s accompanying blurbs. Sometimes these are nothing like what is actually on the record, but we choose them anyway because it sounds like something we might like. I cannot remember anything that was in Rafter’s blurb, but I have a feeling I just chose the album because the band’s name is strikingly similar to an Australian tennis player. After listening to this album (too) many times, I’ve figured out that I’d actually like to be hit in the ear with a tennis ball hit by that Australian rather than listen to this again.
Take ‘Whiskey For Water’ for example, one of the background noises sounds like an injured bird – now why would anyone be possessed to put that on an album? Experimental? Yes. Melodic? My arse. The album is littered with sonic mishaps – the kind of stuff that would make deaf people squirm.
‘R is for Reach’ is eight minutes of no singing, but lots of bleeping. It’s not really an instrumental track, because it’s hard to make out what the instruments are other than grating noises.
The album does work in some places though – i.e. where there are vocals to hide the horrific car crash happening in the background. ‘Bicycle’, the opener, is the best song on the album. That’s not saying much though. In fact, it’s the only good song on the album. You might as well turn off the CD after four minutes.
‘Stars’ is better than some of the songs here – because it’s shorter, and therefore you don’t have to listen to the drones of it for too long. It’s melody could have been decent enough, but is ruined by some eight-year-old kid playing drums in the background while watching a documentary about UFOs.
In places Rafter try to be the Flaming Lips, such as on ‘You’ll never win, he says’ – it doesn’t work, instead it seems like a bad college band doing a bad cover of an originally bad song. In layman’s terms: bad.
Tracks to Download: I wouldn’t bother.
Score: 3.6
Thirty-eight minutes of Monica Seles grunting would have been more entertaining.
- Ronan Hunt-Murphy