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It feels like they could keep making these records forever with no diminishing returns; the level of quality and imagination never drops an inch on LP4.
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LP4 is every bit as unimaginative as its title suggests, picking up quite literally where 2008's lackluster LP3 left off.
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While expanding on what it's done well, the group doesn't cease to be adventurous on LP4.
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Dec 21, 2010As quiet strings and stupid whizzing noises pull the curtain on LP4, all I imagine is Ratatat going, "Alright, party's over, guys" and all I can think is "wait, is that what was happening for the past 43 minutes?"
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It is instrumental rock music that is experimental, emotional, colorful, and engaging, while skillfully blurring many musical boundaries.
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It means you can put on LP4 around any mixed group of people at a barbeque or house party this summer and people can simply enjoy the sensory pleasure of interesting, lively music without analysing the cultural baggage than comes with it. The King of Space-age Pop would surely be proud.
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Like LP3, Ratatat's sound is fuller than on its freshman and sophomore releases. And with strings more dominate on LP4, once again, the guitars actually sound like guitars. Throw me that pick.
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The New York duo make experimental electro pop that works.
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LP4, without a shadow of a doubt, is the most self-indulgent, unpredictable record of the year so far.
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The hooks have gotten naggier, the production crisper, to the point where 'LP4''s wide-eyed squelchy funk is carving them an oxymoronic niche: 'utterly compelling background music'.
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LP4 hints at the band's potential. The mildly weirder arrangements and quirkier synth twists on Party With Children are signs of what they should have fully run with.
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Ratatat always aimed for the flashy yet mass-produced flavor of sub-luxe fashion and lifestyle accessories--and for at least two albums, they hit their mark. But at this point, their sound is wearing increasingly thin and producing diminished results.
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So LP4 may seem like a glorified mess but it has all the coherence and sensorial vigor of one of those Ed Hardy ink designs: unabashedly gaudy with a hard-assed physique; its Byzantium details revealing a mid-to-late century decadence that may still only appeal to a select audience.
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Four albums on, Mike Stroud and Evan Mast have barely altered their instrumental electro/indie/hip-hop hybrid, except to expand and refine its tasteful details.
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Stroud and Mast are still two of the best beat alchemists around, able to craft layer upon layer of instrument and sounds to brilliant effect, but it still sounds like you've all heard it before. It all leads to LP4 having little identity of its own, with the unfortunate tendency for tracks to blur into one another.
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Many of the tracks merely fade out rather than hitting a discernable climax, but it's to Ratatat's credit that it's so entertaining to hear them dig around in the studio sandbox.
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A good deal of the album (particularly the first half) uses the new-fangled instrumentation sporadically, as an afterthought to a slightly darker version of the duo's time-honored techniques. This is where LP4, though flawlessly produced, is messy.
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The WireThe results are mixed. The album never fully escapes the feeling of rootless hipster genre-rifling. But the skill of Mast and Stroud at engineering riffs cannot be denied. [Jul 2010, p.60]
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What's frustrating is that beneath the surface of LP4 there appears to be the basis for a great record. But its execution is too rote, too much the result of being so entrenched in the band's Ratatat-ness that the material is suffocated.
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UncutAll too often, though, slick jams such as "Drugs" and "Party With Children" resemble library tracks, exercises in style that pirouette exquistely, but shy away from becoming anything meaningful. [Aug 2010, p.93]
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A track like "Grape Juice City" indeed showcases the duo's tendency to prance upon unique wavelengths and make them their own but, a little extemporaneous head-butting between the sounds would keep Ratatat atop the sonic badlands they created.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 16 out of 21
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Mixed: 4 out of 21
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Negative: 1 out of 21
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Jan 30, 2011
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Oct 26, 2012