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Abyss isn't a failure--their audacity to upend themselves, contriving each and every step of the way with an expansive sound that masks away the more attention-grabbing arrangements is worthy. Props to them for sounding like everyone else and no one else at the same time.
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Q MagazineLoveless-era My Bloody Valentine is still their touchstone, with dreamy vocals almost obliterated beneath washes of distoortion on "I Just Want To See Your face" and "Reprobate!," but they also thorw curveballs. [Apr 2010, p.119]
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There are standout moments of beauty in the sound they make--usually when pausing to gaze upon the full sun--but these reveries are the exception rather than the rule, and just as the listener is absorbing them, along comes a guitar to wrench them away.
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I'm all about brevity when it's effective, but S-M 2's patchiness makes its 38-minute length feel much longer. The record isn't unlistenable or even awful, but it's filled with lackluster songwriting, ripe with pastiche, and drenched in a wall of effects that do nothing to mask these flaws.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 8
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Mixed: 0 out of 8
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Negative: 1 out of 8
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BrianWApr 13, 2010