imagine 90s slacker rock (a la pavement) played much sloppier and with fewer hooks, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of how dissolver sounds. the record starts off strong with “i can see the future,” and “buddy,” the best songs on the record; the former is a tight, dumb pop song, complete with “woo hoos” and noisy, jagged guitar-lines, the latter is screeching, whiny, awesome mess. had the rest of the record resembled these songs in some way, it definitely would’ve been a whole lot more cohesive in it’s approach. instead “i already know you’re wrong” and “airport ‘99″ slow things down to a monotonous pace that dissolver never fully recovers from. why “‘99″ needs to be stretched out to 7 minutes is beyond me, especially with a horrid chorus built on a flimsy rhyme: “…i don’t think i can/ and i’m sitting next to man/ and i think he knows who i am/ an i think i shook his hand…”. the biggest problem with this record is aaron aites’ uncertainty of whether he wants to iran to be a pop band, or an art-rock band. those two styles aren’t diametrically opposed to one another, but they’re never fully reconciled here, they just emphasize one another’s flaws. on its own, “digital clock and phone” is a great song, but being in the same company as some incredibly smart, and well written pop songs just makes it seem like filler. considering that with each new release, iran has been sounding more poppy and polished, aites should just try being more honest with himself and embrace the style he is itching to convey.
Filed under: Album Review , 2009, dissolver, iran
