Quantcast

Call for Feature Essays About Any Aspect of Popular Culture, Present or Past

Music
cover art

Marmoset

Florist Fired

(Secretly Canadian; US: 24 Jul 2007; UK: Available as import)

With Florist Fired, their first album since 2002, Marmoset has created an album of Velvet Underground-inspired pop dirges for the ADD set. Florist Fired gets off to an uninspired start (the first two songs are buried under so much fuzz that it’s hard to tell what, if anything, is going on underneath), but by the middle of the album the air clears and Marmoset gives us a few nuggets of dreamy, distilled noise-pop. It’s a testament to the strength of Dave Jablonski and Jorma Whittaker’s songwriter that no song seems disjointed or incomplete: each one is a fully realized entity, simple and direct. “Apples” is an obvious highlight, with innocently chiming vibes ringing over the line “Apples are the things I give to you”, and a sinister cello making the whole song seem a lot less harmless (and more interesting) than it would coming from another band. There are some duds here, for sure. “Eat Me Out” is the kind of song only a horny 15-year-old goth kid with stringy hair and a crush on Robert Smith could enjoy. Luckily, with all 16 tracks clocking in under 35 minutes, you won’t have to wait long for the next song.

Rating:

Tagged as: marmoset
Comments
Now on PopMatters
A Painting Come to Life: 'The Mill & the Cross' (Short Ends and Leader) [Fri, 4:00 pm]
A Far Too Safe... and Strained... 'House' (Short Ends and Leader) [Fri, 9:00 am]
'Safe House' Is Ersatz Edgy (Reviews) [Fri, 8:06 am]
The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Film Adaptations of All Time (Short Ends and Leader) [Fri, 7:50 am]
  1. 'Nebraska': Bruce Springsteen's 'Heart of Darkness' (Columns)
  2. The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Film Adaptations of All Time (Short Ends and Leader)
  3. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 1: From 13Ghosts to Friendly Fires (Features)
  4. The Best Games of 2011 (Features)
  5. Not-So-Central Casting: Kevin Smith and the Birth of the Reality Podcast (Features)
  6. The 10 Greatest Movie Spies Ever (Short Ends and Leader)
  7. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 2: From the Go! Team to the Phoenix Foundation (Features)
  8. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 3: From Real Estate to Youth Lagoon (Features)
  9. Lana Del Rey: Born to Die (Reviews)
  10. The Top 15 Madonna Singles of All Time (Sound Affects)
  11. Get Off of My Cloud!: 'Collecting' Music in the Digital Age (Features)
  12. Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas (Reviews)
  13. Google and the Production of Curiosity (Marginal Utility)
  14. Carole E. Barrowman’s Authorial Journey to Hollow Earth (Features)
  15. “Don’t Let Me Fall”: Hip-Hop in the Age of Austerity (Features)
  16. Tower Songs: Townes Van Zandt (Columns)
  17. Black Bananas: Rad Times Xpress IV (Reviews)
  18. Paul McCartney: Kisses on the Bottom (Reviews)
  19. The Gay Ole Countryside (Columns)
  20. Of Montreal: Paralytic Stalks (Reviews)
  21. Counterbalance No. 67: John Coltrane’s 'A Love Supreme' (Sound Affects)
  22. Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Munro: A Rock Star’s Midlife Crisis or Valid Literature? (Features)
  23. The 10 Best John Coltrane Solos (Sound Affects)
  24. A Look to the Past, An Insight Into the Present: The Use of Gender in 'Mad Men' (Features)
  25. A Tale of How Great Journalism Became Revisionist History: Grambling State U Football (Columns)
  26. Chairlift: Something (Reviews)
  27. Mark Lanegan Band: Blues Funeral (Reviews)
  28. The Asteroids Galaxy Tour - "Heart Attack" (Cosmic Kids Remix) (PopMatters Premiere) (Mixed Media)
  29. The Barbaric (and Poetic) Yawp of Shelby Lynne (Notes from the Road)
  30. After Cease to Exist: The Far-from-Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (Features)
PM Picks
Music Archive
Announcements

© 1999-2012 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved.
PopMatters.com™ and PopMatters™ are trademarks
of PopMatters Media, Inc.

PopMatters is wholly independently owned and operated.
PopMatters is a member of BUZZMEDIA Music, MOG and Guardian Select.