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Under The RadarThis album sees Frog Eyes as a band fully realized. [#17, p.85]
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Tears of the Valedictorian is an incredibly dense record and may take several passes before you can even begin to peel away its layers. That sense of rigor, though, is what makes it so arresting.
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Before, the most crazed cacophony could impossibly capitulate into swooning grandeur, but now that disparity just isn’t so striking. The dynamic is still in play, but with the edges rounded off, any tension is diminished.
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It is simultaneously the most resplendent, accomplished record the band has made, with all kinds of songs... that retain the worst, most self-indulgent aspects of one of underground rock’s most consistently imperfect bands.
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Tears of the Valedictorian works on so many levels. It adds another hefty, colorful cornea to the Frog Eyes spazz gallery, for one. It also takes a step toward streamlining their sound, which may, in the wrong hands, be considered a faulty premise, but let me assure you, it isn’t; this recording is crystal-clear but far from diamond-decadence.
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SpinValedictorian frequently collides with bracing beauty, sometimes of the of the conventional sort, but more often like nothing else before it. [May 2007, p.85]
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One listen to Tears of the Valedictorian confirms the group's uncanny talent for creating manic, beautiful and upsetting songs that seem to exist wholly for themselves.
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Tears of the Valedictorian is Frog Eyes' first substantial advance since 2003's The Golden River.
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Tears Of The Valedictorian may be Frog Eyes' most accessible album, if only because Mercer sings as much as he yelps, and pulls back the reins on the band's thrashy, bashy art-folk long enough to let some melody creep in.
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Tears Of The Valedictorian is the band in top form, with Spencer Krug binding meandering tales of post-postmodernist artistic anxiety with wiry keyboards that echo Mercer's morphing vocals.
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Lovers of schizo-rock will have plenty to revel in.
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Tears of the Valedictorian is easily one of the best records of the year.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 22 out of 27
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Mixed: 1 out of 27
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Negative: 4 out of 27
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seandJul 29, 2007
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DavidVJul 21, 2007
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AmortortakJul 13, 2007