New Estate
Considering... (2005, Kittridge)

The formula is simple. Fuzzbass + tattered copy of Slanted & Enchanted + lo-fi pop sensibilities = indie rock darlings on the rise. New Estate's Considering... follows this formula almost to a T. Considering... is a "great record" in the same sense that Million Dollar Baby was a "great film": anyone who saw it will tell you great it was, but they won't be able to point out specific moments, and they probably won't ever want to watch more than 2 or 3 times in their life. I say this, not to critizice, but to put things into perspective.

Fuzzy-rock is a dying genre, like it or not. It reached it's peak and nowaday's if you don't have some samples, crazy synth beats or some kind of electrical nonsense in there, then it isn't worth listening to, is it? It doesn't matter that Considering... has some of the chunkiest guitars you'll hear this year, or some of the catchiest melodies. It's just...unremarkable? Is that the right word? The songs tend to bleed into each other until you feel like you've just listened to an hour-long Pavement mash-up cover. There are points where the songs begin to drone on, seemingly in a pointless manner (see the ending of 'free sherry').

New Estate manages to redeem themselves on a few tracks, such as the pure gem 'Broadway', with it's catchy vocals and classic indie chunk or the final rise and fall of 'Learning Zone', which culminates at about the 3:10 mark into an edge-of-your-seat ride into oblivion (Remember the first time you heard Godspeed You Black Emperor? Who knew that instruments could be so moving!). Overall, this is a good record that will probably go unnoticed or underrated by most of the "critics" this year, but then again, we all know how much we matter...

-Stephen Smith 6/29/05