Paste, PopMatters, AMG chime in on Icky Blossoms; hot gambling and booze (in the column); the Future of Maha, Landing on the Moon tonight…

Category: Blog — Tags: , , , — @ 12:32 pm July 19, 2012

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Those Icky Blossoms reviews are finally beginning to roll in, though we’re still waiting on the all-important Pitchfork review.

PopMatters gave the album a stunning 8 out of 10, and compare the band to X. “Imagine if that outfit leaped from the ‘80s to the modern day and started toying around with synthesizers and drum machines in some basement workspace and there you have Icky Blossoms (member Nik Fackler even has a little John Doe thing going on with his lead vocal turn on the ramshackle ‘I Am’).” X? I’m not sure I’m buying it, but a compliment’s a compliment. They close by saying, “Icky Blossoms may not be the first to champion this brand of art house experimentalism, but they do it with such aplomb that you wish they were.Read the whole thing here.

Paste

Not as complimentary but still positive was Paste Magazine, who gave the debut a 6.1 out of 10. “Heavy on electronic haziness the whole way through, vibes jolt from upbeat sweet songs to super weird, druggy dance throbs. The zig-zagging isn’t necessarily a negative thing; it just makes for a hard-to-follow full-length.” Again, I’m not sure I’m buying it. To me, the record as a whole is very cohesive. The closer:  “It seems with this first release, they’re just starting to unfurl their musical feelers and see what it is that they do. So far we know they can do electronic music in the grand sense pretty well, and that’s cool. But what else?”  Read the whole Paste write-up here.

Finally, there’s the once all-important All Music Guide, one of the first online review websites whose dominance has waned, thanks in part to all the other sites and their own lousy website redesign. AMG gave the record 3 out of 5 stars. “Icky Blossoms succeed in showing many different sides of dance-infused indie rock with their debut, but there’s an unsettled feeling that suggests the trio members weren’t entirely sure where they wanted to go with the record. With a more clearly defined musical direction, like the Faint before them, they’d sound more fully committed.Read the AMG review right here.

No doubt, more to come…

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This week’s Over the Edge column is a recap of a sweaty Sunday afternoon spent at Horsemen’s Park. Read how easy it is to lose money gambling when you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s in this week’s issue of The Reader, or you can read it online right here. Live horse racing continues at Horsemen’s Park this weekend. It’s fun and it’s free (except for the gambling and the booze parts).

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When Red Sky announced that it was dropping its Thursday night programming, the first thing that went through my mind was ‘My God, what will they do with the thousands (tens of thousands?) of people who have traveled to Omaha for this mammoth festival?‘ Well, here’s a suggestion for the geniuses at MECA. Tell your (imaginary) throngs of festival goers stuck in their downtown hotels waiting for Brad Paisley to arrive to instead venture out to beautiful downtown Benson for The Future of Maha Showcase at The Waiting Room. Three of Omaha’s up-and-coming high-fliers — Lightning Bug, Millions Of Boys and Snake Island! — will take the stage starting at 9 p.m. And the cost for this spectacular air-conditioned slab of entertainment — absolutely free.

If that doesn’t trip their trigger, skip on down to The Barley Street Tavern tonight, where Landing on the Moon is playing along with Madison band Icarus Himself and Above the State. This one will cost ya $5. Starts at 9.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

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