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the pitchfork review of celestite is further example of who the real enemy is.
they do that thing that every idiot (including board members here) does by attributing postures to any kind of artistic endeavour as if the artist was only able to make moves in the preset space of critical expectations. and they always use parenthesis to imply how ABOVE it all they are. so in the celestite review they claim wolves are trying to be "bold" by deciding to "alienate" their fans. yet nowhere have wolves ever said this.
its the basic move that these idiots do to broadcast their self consciousness to everyone else. "oh, you were trying to do something so pretentious when we really just wanted good fun".
the implication is that you cant do anything in art but cater to the demand for dumbed down crap that these fans want or else they'll ridicule you with their mocking buzzwords as if theyve totally seen through you. so they sneer that you think you're so "transgressive" or something.
the whole review is one big snide pretending not to be snide attack on wolves, with the implication that they should be dumber and think less.
because these people are so crippled by their own self consciousness that its threatening to them to witness any kind of artistic exploration at all, because they think this is so niaeve and can't handle it since they only consume to cement their own conservatism. which entails ridiculing music for existing at all from a non perspective that pretends to have seen it all and be capable of out sneering anything. and of course the one thing that that sneer can't see through is itself but they don't realize it.
they have to be able to constantly pitch accusations in parenthesis at people "bold" "transgressive" "deep", whatever. the point is to totally destroy music and ruthlessly reaffirm that it can be about and mean precisely nothing ever.
and as ive pointed out before, the reason people have to do this so badly is not because they actually know better...
its very threatening to these people when an artist dares to criticise their fans, which is why wolves had to get this kind of treatment in the p4k review.
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and also, fantano reviewed this and did it well. i think he's to be credited for not falling into the traps that p4k does and for always trying to take the artist on their own terms and never resorting to snark. whereas in p4k its very obvious the reviewers get a sad thrill out of being conservative gatekeepers who can shit on anything interesting in the name of the empty, vacuous crap that they got paid to promote. at times pitchfork seems like an industry mag that exists solely to turn people off underground music that would be a threat to the big labels.
fantano is a one man band who does better work than p4k, in fact you dont even need p4k whatsoever.
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quietus on the other hand are interested in wider social/political contexts and try (often awkwardly) to include as many references to cool philosophy and stuff, they are doing what some of the old music mags did before they all died in the 90's. this is definitely definitely to be highly applauded for the memes it spreads, but it does tend slide over into showing off sometimes. and often quietus writers come across as the unlikable, upper class hipsters they are, who would probably be more comfortable making fun of people outside their clique than reviewing albums.
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