We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves
- John Maus
- Band Name: John Maus
- Record Label: Ribbon Records
- Release Date: Jun 28, 2011
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Jun 30, 201180On his third album, John Maus continues his pursuit of immediacy-in-action mixed with a certain calm, developing a further tension that infuses both his music and words.
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Jun 30, 201180Unlike Before Today, Maus' third release is less moody, more consistent in its sense of oddness and intrigue. We Must Become... is also consistent in that nearly every track manages to top what came before it.
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Jul 8, 201184Maus has a full set of songs whose architecture is just as sophisticated and riveting in actuality as it is in theory.
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Aug 8, 201180American producer conjures up dazzling electronics. [Aug. 2011, p. 123]
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Jul 15, 201180Anyone who's enjoyed a fruitful encounter with Ariel Pink's home-recorded oeuvre should also find plenty to love about John Maus. [Jul 2011, p.91]
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Dec 12, 201160If the original Assault on Precinct 13 soundtrack had been made by a time-shifted Let's Dance Bowie, you'd be most-way there. [Aug. 2011, p. 104]
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Jul 6, 201175With just a touch of enunciation and a dash of well-placed bombast, these songs could be bona fide hits.
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Jun 30, 201180From chintzy keyboards to karaoke-style performances, Maus exaggerates the stereotypically artificial to tap into something real.
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Jul 12, 201180This [Closing number "Believer], the apotheosis of the album, is overwhelming, and like the rest of this excellent record, exists in a hazy netherworld that can be a discomfiting place to inhabit. But stick with Maus, and you're with him on his profound and affecting spiritual journey.
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Jun 30, 201170It makes sense that the conceptual gravitas behind an album like this wouldn't have enough fuel for 11 songs (the originals of this scene weren't necessarily known for their full-lengths) but it certainly would've been amazing to see him pull it off. Specific, loving, authentic, but limiting, it may leave us wanting more--but there's no doubt that John Maus made the album he wanted to make.
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Jul 7, 201180It's hugely enjoyable, even without any theoretical justification.
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Jun 30, 2011100Pitiless Censors is a sparkling album, a lo-fi synth pop masterpiece that manages to give endless aural delights while still being intellectually engaging, and despite having been caught at the center of a whirlpool of current movements, all of which reflect some aspect of Maus' style, he has only cemented his identity as a singular, unimpeachable figure.
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Jul 28, 201160This is where the irony comes in--he sacrifices most of his originality to referential tropes. Through successfully emulating noteworthy keyboardists of the past, he nearly obliterates his own identity as a practitioner. It's not that he isn't good, either. He's too good.
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Jun 30, 20110The album is filled with garage-sale synths flooded with reverb and nary a hook to be found, sounding, at best, like an unfinished video-game score ("Hey Moon") and, at worst, like a Human League track played backward in a Walkman taped to the skull of a drowning man ("Head for the Country").
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Jul 8, 201160Maus sounds as pretentious as his album title when he's at his least self-censorious, delivering empty, eye-rolling provocations on Cop Killer and Matter Of Fact.
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Jun 30, 201180So wonderfully compelling is it all that it's easy to miss how seriously impassioned Maus can be.
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Jun 30, 201172As a whole, We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves doesn't necessarily offer the highs of his past two albums, or something as immediate as "Rights for Gays," but it is a remarkably cohesive listen.
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Jul 13, 201180He has incorporated some New Wave signposts, with a little melancholy disco, constantly refining what might be the right kind of landscape for his deeply yearning, compelling vocal.
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Aug 17, 201170Where the vocals are murky, the synthesizers have a queasy over-clarity, poised somewhere between the repellent and the sublime. [Aug 2011, p.58]
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Jul 6, 201149We Must Become often hints at Joy Division's stylish brand of post-punk ennui, but by treating it as little more than a gimmick, Maus loses the urgency that makes Curtis's music so endurable.
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10
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This one is tough. Is it a pastiche or just bad production? Anyway, itâ