[koolthing78]

Hmm, in case I was unclear in my second post, I retract my initial opinion, and now deem this to be an excellent album. As far as the "finite amount of noise or noodling"--once that's been reached, and you can acknowledge that, it allows you to zoom in a level, forget about the "structure" and pay attention to the individual things. And when you do that (and by "you," I mean me), you realize all the fantastic and subtle and complicated things going on, some of which are totally new to my ears.

A few of the many spectacular things:
-The loose, off-kilter, about to spiral out of control-sounding part of Leaky Lifeboat (starting around 2:45)--it's almost funny in really, really wonderful way that I can't yet describe. But it makes any corniness the song may have been guilty of seem not only acceptable, but terribly welcome.

-The noise portion of What We Know, which originally made me kind of agree with the sentiment (I think it was Summer's) that it sounded kind of formulaically forced. But then the headphones brought out that whole descending guitar "bwaaaaaah" that was completely new and unexpected, and adds greatly to the meaning/feeling of the song.

-Speaking of headphones, Calming the Snake takes on a whole new life through them. The guitar in the left ear that comes in after the lone bass line is actually playing notes (albeit noisy, disguised ones)--and awesome ones at that. And the way they introduce one guitar in the right ear, then the one in the middle, then the one in the left (and I LOVE that "bum-buuum bum-buuum- buuuuuum" thing) allows you to hear the individual and seemingly disparate things going on, which makes the fact that they all work together that much more exciting. Noise here is not a substitution for structure--it is the foundation for it (not completely unlike Blonde Redhead's "Symphony of Treble")

-There's tons more (like the one note in the right ear of Antenae that's tuned sharp--barely discernable, but gives the singular chord so much more depth), but I've rambled enough for now. Final thought: sure, there's no Jams Run Free, no Catholic Block, no Sympathy for the Strawberry, no Brave Men Run; but we already have those songs. This really is a new direction, and they kind of nailed it--you just have to understand that and accept it, and then your brain will welcome it.