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Calamity shows Cohen struggling to balance his twee pop tendencies with experimentation, the same thing Deerhoof mastered on The Runners Four.
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Calamity shows the Curtains to be a band of great moments more than great songs, and in this distinction lies the difference between the listener that dismisses the album and the one that holds on to it despite its flaws.
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Calamity is slightly inconsistent and could be described as a hit-or-miss affair, but the hits outnumber the misses.
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Upon first listen, some of Calamity, though fun, sounds like partial ideas rather than full-fledged songs. Some tracks never recover from this symptom after a dozen spins; some do.
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The problems start with the production, which feels empty and stolid, the guitar plunking around like it has nowhere important to go and the drums tap-tap-tapping out mundane, aimless little shuffle rhythms.
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UncutFull of fleeting revelations, Calamity is as bewitchingly fractured as The Red Krayola's subversive attacks on pop/rock form. [Dec 2006, p.106]
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Calamity is a good record, but is merely adequate beside Cohen’s extensive catalog with [Deerhoof].
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Unfortunately, unlike Deerhoof's complex sonic and logical experiments, the Curtains' material feels too spare, too underdeveloped, less like well-honed songs than fledgling ideas that'd benefit from the input of additional bandmates.
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Comparing his remarkable contributions to Deerhoof with this boring, nondescript effort suggests that Cohen should open his studio doors and welcome collaborators.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 2 out of 2
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Mixed: 0 out of 2
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Negative: 0 out of 2
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LeoFJan 20, 2007one of the best of 2006, full of wonderful moods and unexpected turns on the songs.
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T.SpeakerJan 13, 2007