I can’t just say ‘I don’t like it’ or ‘it’s boring’, so I’ll bore you with the details of why this is so boring. The musicianship is stellar, but so what? The guys that back up ‘NSYNC are probably really talented musicians, but that doesn’t mean what they play is good. This is ‘good’, though, and that’s my quandary. I just have no desire to listen to it. Had this record come out ten years ago, maybe I would care, but since this has been done to the point that it makes me sick I can’t really fake a hard on for it. Noodly, go nowhere bass interplay has its place, but there has to be some sort of payoff. Derivative experimentation is musical masturbation. Dianogah’s music just hangs in this pretty limbo, where modal scales are the holy grail. Yes, it’s pretty, but I still don’t want to listen to it because it makes me fall asleep.

All of the tones are gray. You know the drill- lots of harmonics and tumbling melodies. The songs ebb and flow with majestic sweeps. These guys are incredibly talented- just uninspired. The band has the loud/soft dynamic down to a science, but it’s too safe and cozy. The unpredictability of the musical tangents is predictable. Know what I mean? If making music comes this easy for you, you’re not playing the right kind of music. If there is no tension or sense of the unexplored, then what’s the point? Shuffling drums may underpin beautiful bass arpeggios, but I’m still numb. It’s all here- even semi-spoken word vocals. If Slint-lite is your bag, turn off your computer and go buy this CD. I just can’t take any more of it.