User ratings in Music are temporarily disabled. More info
-
Summary:
This is the second album for the Indiana-born musician.
[The album was credited under Grampall Jookabox. The band changed its name to just Jookabox in 2009.]
- Record Label: Asthmatic Kitty
- Genre(s): Indie, Rock, Experimental
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 6 out of 10
-
Mixed: 4 out of 10
-
Negative: 0 out of 10
-
What places Ropechain, Grampall’s second release for Sufjan Stevens’ Asthmatic Kitty label, above its emotionally vacant peers is a willingness to trade drugged-out euphoric rambling with tangible anxiety.
-
It’s great music and it clearly showcases the fact that Grampall Jookabox should have a steady and successful career ahead of him.
-
Adamson's heady blend of Odelay-era Beck, Roky Erickson paranoia, cosmic hip-hop, and general Animal Collective weirdness sounds like a train wreck in print, but his knack for odd melodies, stealthy programming, timely pitch-shifting, and macabre (and occasionally hysterical) subject matter helps to keep things consistently interesting throughout Ropechain's easily digestible 45-minute runtime.
-
With Ropechain, the emotional turnaround's reversed: An initial, burning desire to hate everything about this album--the stylistic mish-mash, the artistic blackface, the blah cover art--gives way to wary admiration, even though it's hard to shake the sense that its creator's something of a jerk.
-
Ropechain is sometimes frustrating bordering on indulgent, but it also depicts, without censorship, Adamson’s unique process and point of view.
-
Eccentricity is what defines Grampall Jookabox and their sophomore effort Ropechain, but that doesn’t make it any less listenable. In fact, Ropechain has its fair share of fine musical moments that actually benefit from the bizarre tendencies of the group.
-
Good ideas lurk throughout the album, but they either disappear under the weight of too much echo and overdubbing, or get pushed aside as a result of what I'd imagine is either a lack of discipline or dissenting voice during the creative process.