Is Pitchfork Reviews Reviews writing for Interview the new Hipster Runoff writing for Grantland? This is a good, funny piece, though. Surprised it’s not longer. 

I think this weirdly mischaracterizes the band based on the press bio:

Noting that they’ve “always played faster and a little harder live,” frontman Matthew Caws and crew set out to capture the raw, excited feel of a practice-room jam session with seventh album The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy, the followup to the 2010’s If I Had a Hi-Fi. 

This may well be, but the production and energy level are virtually identical to the previous three Nada Surf albums (which the review gives little indication of having heard). It’s certainly no worse than The Weight is a Gift (a little sharper, to these ears), which got a respectable 6.4 — what crimes has this one committed to lower it to a sub-average 4.4? Silly lyrics? It’s a Nada Surf album! Oh well.

2004’s pitchfork-as-hippie, throwing out wild scores and daring points and freewheeling reviews and trying new drugs and living outside the music reviewing law is 2010’s yuppie, paying the mortgage and driving to work in something expensive but sensible like a Volvo i guess. obviously the days of like 2000-word instant message conversations between George Bush and Gandhi to explain a post-punk record are behind us

Miss you, glory days

Also, P4k Reviews Reviews bro, do you read Cokemachineglow? I feel like you’d love it.

the other day i told someone how i was really excited for the conversation about this record and he said it would be interesting to see how critics position themselves around the record and around each other. records like MAYA are like that movie Battle Royale where all these ninth graders are transported to an island and each one is told they have three days to kill all the other ones and then they will be declared “the winner”, except instead of ninth graders it’s critics and they are all transported to the internet and have to prove themselves “post-” whatever perspective other critics are taking: in the case of MAYA it’ll be who’s post-Lynn Hirschberg piece, who’s post-Fallout from that piece, and who’s post-all those perspectives and is thinking about the music as if there was no significant extramusical information on M.I.A. and in a way i feel like that’s a frivolous pursuit because you’d need one of those memory-erasing devices from Men In Black to not factor in everything you know about M.I.A. right now, even subconsciously

This is what “incisive” looks like