by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

A couple brief news items…

Yesterday Desaparecidos announced via twitter and on its website that they’ll be joining Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Alkaline Trio and a bunch of other bands at the Voodoo Arts and Music Festival in New Orleans Nov. 1. Ticket info here.

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If you didn’t get in on the early bird deal to buy Maha Music Festival tickets you’re out of luck. All the discount and bundle packages have already sold out. Man, that was fast. Advance general admission tickets are still available for $45 (It’s $55 DOS).

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The Thermals’ Saddle Creek Records debut, Desperate Ground, dropped today. Pitchfork, that all-knowing know-nothing arbiter of indie music taste posted its review of the record today as well, giving it a 5.0 rating (out of 10) — which is kinda/sorta not good. The review concludes:

“Perhaps the pileup of clichés and the numbed production is supposed to give Desperate Ground a meta context, that the endless body count has rendered Harris completely desensitized. But that’s a generous reading for an album that begins and ends with guns-blazin’ mission statements with plenty in between, so it’s more likely Desperate Ground is a failure to respond to the horror rather than an intention to reflect it.“

Ouch. By contrast, NME gave the album an 8.0 calling the it in its review “low-fi goodness.”

AllMusic.com gave the record a 4-out-of-5 star rating (here). While PopMatters also gave it an 8/10 rating.

What the f*** does Pitchfork know?

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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 © 2013 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.