Background Check: The Los Angeles Times looks at the CVs of the National American Latino Museum's biggest advocates—celeb Eva Longoria and arts exec Jonathan Yorba—and their findings aren't very encouraging.

Duh: Rock-star urbanist Richard Florida maps Pitchfork's best tracks of 2011. The results are kind of a no-brainer, but still frustrating: Most bands on that revered list are from New York. (And D.C. did not fare well.) Unless Bon Iver finally puts my grandparents' hometown of Eau Claire, Wis., on the map, that probably won't change anytime soon.

This just in: DCist's white, high-income readership has no idea who Big Tigger is; WaPo's crotchety, old readership doesn't understand The List anymore.

Pitchfork, which this year runs from July 15 to 17 in its familiar Union Park venue in the West Loop, will offer D-Plan an audience of close to 20,000 when they play on the festival's second day. (Presumably they'll play second-to-last; Fleet Foxes is listed as the Saturday headliner.) But Pitchfork isn't the no-name alternative festival it was when it debuted in 2006. It's still nowhere near the gluttonous cacophony that Lollapalooza is, but it is a major stop in its own right with a growing corporate organ. Last year's installment featured Heineken replacing Goose Island as the beer supplier, along with an air-conditioned tent sponsored by American Express.

It's still a coup for D-Plan, but at this stage the Pitchfork Music Festival has its plusses and drawbacks:

The Good:

• Big audience. Union Park can hold close to 20,000 people when configured for Pitchfork.
• Killer line-up. Other acts announced today by Pitchfork include Animal Collective, James Blake, TV on the Radio, OFWGKTA, and Destroyer. The full line-up will feature about 40 acts, most of whom appear to have performed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon at some point in the last six months.
• Concessions are historically reasonable. I've never paid more than $2 for a bottle of water or $5 for a cup of beer at Pitchfork, and on hotter days they've halved the price for the water. Food vendors are local businesses, and the all-important portable toilets are generally plentiful.
• A sunny summer day in Chicago has two settings. One is warm, breezy, and altogether lovely.

The Bad:

• You can't rush the stage at a festival. It took a matter of seconds to ascend from the floor of the 9:30 Club to Joe Easley's drum kit in January. At Pitchfork D-Plan enthusiasts will find metal barricades, a photographers' pit, and a garrison of security guards (some of whom will be off-duty cops) between themselves and the band. And the stage is at least 8 feet off the ground. The upshot is that the guys will seem awfully lonely during "The Ice of Boston."
• Pitchfork ain't cheap like it used to be. Back in the day (2006), the Pitchfork Music Festival was a two-day affair that cost $30 for the entire weekend. This year the three-day affair will set you back $110, still less than half the price of a Lollapalooza pass, but not exactly a small purchase.
• Indie rock has outgrown its thrift-store-bought britches. Twilight Saga soundtracks? Caribbean cruises? Corporate-sponsored festivals? As one jaded indie-rock chronicler just said to me, "I'm going to only hardcore shows from now on."
• A sunny summer day in Chicago has two settings. The other is oppressively humid and hot as balls.

But if you must, you can get your tickets here. It's $45 for a single day—D-Plan plays Saturday, July 16—and $110 for the whole thing.

If a band is getting tons of buzz, a grup will normally put on a skinny tie before heading to the show

As a follow-up to yesterday's computer-assisted investigative feature on D.C. grups (and their apparent reliance on Pitchfork), Washington City Paper decided to track down an actual grup and figure out what makes him tick. Matt Frost is married and lives in Virginia. He has a bunch of kids. Dismemberment Plan played a show in his basement once. He is a grup. This is his story.

Matt Frost: OK. I figured out how to turn this on.

Washington City Paper: Shit. I was just trying to find a way to invite you to chat.

This part of Google could be more intuitive!

Frost: I'm trying to dig up the old, seminal article about grups from one of those New York web mags.

Got it.

WCP: Yeah, that's "Up With Grups" by Adam Sternbergh! That is in the best of New York anthology sitting atop my shitter.

Since you are a grup, I think it's fitting that you open up with some thoughts. Maybe a confession, or some data.

Like, what makes you a grup?

Frost: OK. First, I'll qualify my self-identification. I'm not actually cool enough to be on, say, that GQ list.

But since "grup" is like "hipster" in that nobody will admit to being one, I thought calling myself one would inoculate me against actually being one.

Like, among my most-listened to albums from 2010 is Jakob Dylan's Women and Country. That's definitely not cool.

It's not even uncool in a cool way.

WCP: No, you are exactly right! There is no redeeming Jakob Dylan!

I was thinking maybe you were going to say the new Reba album, which is good country pop.

Frost: It's not a bold contrarian stroke, like Chuck Klosterman claiming that Chinese Democracy is actually good.

Right. That would be on another level.

Jakob Dylan is straight-up adult contemporary, but in the closet.

WCP: Well, Dylan aside, consider yourself inoculated against vicious attacks (from me)

Frost: So kind.

But I think there's a point to make about the hegemony of Pitchfork, which is that the people who like these bands aren't just all peers of one another—they are, more or less, peers of the musicians themselves.

I mean, the Walkmen went to St Alban's. Some of them have kids and moved from N.Y. to Philly.

That's the story with tons of people I know.

WCP: Oh, I like this idea.

Frost: So I don't think it's fair to say that the Pitchfork audience is a bunch of sheep, all engaged in mutual signaling.

WCP: I didn't mean to imply that! But, how many of the people polled by GQ could name 10 of the American Top 40?

One person told me he had heard one song from AT40.

Frost: Right. That's a good point.

But I think the uniformity of opinion emerges as much from commonalities between producers and consumers as among consumers.

WCP: Katy Perry didn't go to Columbia, and one could argue that her biggest fans didn't either.

Frost: The folks on that list probably would not have hung out with, say, Daughtry in high school.

WCP: Meanwhile, I don't know a single red-blooded American who actually likes Vampire Weekend!

I mean, when did this start? Is this a Velvet Underground thing?

Frost: Good question. Probably sooner. The idea that the rock star package included the role of "generational standard-bearer" came about in the '60s.

But the more subtle, fine-grained class identification came later.

WCP: You know why I've never thought about this? Because I grew up in St. Cloud, Florida.

But please, continue!

Frost: Hey—let's start calling Vampire Weekend "The" Vampire Weekend and see if it catches on?

WCP: Now you're just being antagonistic!

You sound like Terry Teachout describing "The" Family Guy!

Frost: (For the record, I like Vampire Weekend. It's something the whole family enjoys.)

WCP: My family is big into Paul Simon's Graceland, which is what Vampire Weekend is sucking the life out of every time they pick up their instruments.

Frost: So, yeah. Maybe rock star-to-audience solidarity started at the generational level. Then as audiences grew more fractured, the bonds of affinity between performer and audience followed?

WCP: Well, did they? People seem really into their bands nowadays.

I was just grooving on this idea of educated and/or wealthy people listening to the shit they find on Pitchfork, and everybody else listening to FM radio.

Frost: Reihan Salam has a few good references and quotes about the myth of eclecticism, and how people think they are culturally omnivorous, but they really build their consumption profile via exclusion.

WCP: Of course we do! I will not listen to the Beatles or the Stones.

I just won't.

Frost: Ha ha.

WCP: And yet I still consider myself well rounded musically

Frost: Wait. Really?

WCP: Yes, really.

I will not be a reverse grup

Frost: That's hard core.

The question of Pitchfork being the FM radio of the cultural vanguard is pretty good.

Part of the problem is the search costs of new music.

Unless you're really into the cool-hunting process, you are going to need some trusted source to vet cultural products and present them to you.

So whether that's the FM radio or Pitchfork, you're still just getting a highly filtered stream of material.

But...

It's hard to really quantify how much is "out there."

So our intuitions about how much we're missing might be totally wrong.

WCP: Well, we have some tools. (One of which I am looking for!)

Frost: What if there really are only a handful of ways for a civilian like me to be "way into music."

WCP: Or what if there are only a handful of convenient ways?

Frost: Yeah, that's the "civilian" distinction I'm making.

WCP: As opposed to a tenured ethnomusicologist!

All of this, btw, runs up against the grup theory.

Frost: I knew a guy in school who was always turning us on to new (and old) stuff. He now has a really great label that cranks out equal parts old obscure craziness and new indie stuff. But he learned at an early age how to scour used bins, chat up record store clerks, etc.

How so? (I think I know, but)

WCP: Well, if a) many grups are actually following bands staffed by people in their age range and b) it would be exceedingly difficult for grups to join another "tribe" of listeners, then how is being 30 and liking The National a) their fault or b) a bad thing?

Frost: Yes! The sorting is almost inevitable, once you look at it that way.

WCP: Well, I feel like an asshole now.

And I just realized: There's more to the grup thing than music!

Frost: Now you're talking.

WCP: There are the iPods, the jeans, the hairstyles, the living in lofts with their babies in hammocks 8 feet off the floor.

All that shit is part of being a grup, too.

Matt: I think that's more Brooklyn-specific.

Making your baby wear a Misfits shirt is still cooler than worrying that having a baby will cramp your style.

WCP: Hmm, yes, being alternadad versus being an uncle!

Frost: Anyway, I think the Pitchfork grups that you ragged on today are a symptom of a cultural ecosystem that 1) prizes eclecticism and omnivorous consumption, BUT 2) is not as porous as we think it is.

WCP: I like where this is going

Frost: We think we enjoy a groovy pomo buffet of cultural offerings, and there are these master semionauts like the Beastie Boys and Kanye West who can sample like crazy, but for your average listener to really traverse the different cultural stovepipes is difficult and rare.

WCP: SAMPLES. I have no idea where my favorite ones come from. And I read about music A LOT.

You know what else is like this? Covers!

I went to college with guys who thought that Dave Matthews wrote All Along the Watch Tower

Frost: Ouch. I was just about to suggest that covers are an easier hierarchy for audiences to situate themselves in, but then there's that guy.

And ha ha, everybody knows that Jimi Hendrix wrote that song!

Let me go switch the laundry. BRB

WCP: Ha. OK!

Frost: DJs who build beats and dig up samples are busy with their own arms race of obscurity and cool. Way over my head.

But then that Girl Talk guy comes along and brings it down to a popular level, and everyone's all SQUEEEEEEEE! THIS IS THE BEST WEDDING DJ EVAR!!!!!!!

WCP: You asshole.

Frost: But really—did any of us need to be reminded of Onyx?

WCP: I have some Girl Talk on my computer.

Mainly because it's easy to collect music even if I don't want to listen to it.

Frost: Me too! It's free! And maybe against the law! So get it before they lock that guy up!

WCP: Here's what I don't understand: Why is it OK for my cool friends to like Girl Talk, which is mashed up FM hits from the last 30 years, but I can't listen to Matchbox 20?

It's like, selectively upgrading cultural artifacts.

Frost: Yeah, ironic distance is everything.

WCP: But here's the thing: I like all the artists Girl Talk samples. I grew up listening to the radio. I listened to pop radio stations when I did my homework in middle school and high school.

I'm not being ironic when I say I like the artists GT samples.

Why must we french our secret loves with acid tongues?

Frost: I decided when I was 12 that I was too cool for top 40, and switched to classic rock radio.

The notion of the "guilty pleasure" is so prominent.

WCP: Where did you come from that 12-year-olds worried about being hip?

(Mind you, in central florida our guiding light was Total Request Live.)

Frost: I think we just decided that Duran Duran were too foppy.

It's like what [Ta-Nehisi Coates] said about Prince the other day.

It takes a certain maturity for young dudes to rock out to dudes in eyeliner.

WCP: COUNTERPOINT: How do you explain sentimentalists from the suburbs putting on fishnets and listening to My Chemical Romance?

Is that like, emotional maturity?

Or maybe, "adult feelings" manifesting in less than adult ways.

Frost: Um, that's not on my radar, as they say. I'd have to google My Chemical Romance.

WCP: Oh shit! That's awesome!

You haven't heard of My Chemical Romance!

Ha. That is so cool.

And weird.

Frost: No. Hip me.

I have, like, seven minutes to get with it before I have to pack it in.

WCP: Haha, you are a dad

Frost: Are they "beatniks?"

WCP: My Chemical Romance are emo kids. Lots of makeup, loud guitars, with lyrics about being a sad bitch.

I love them.

Very, very much.

Frost: OK. I can guess the rest.

WCP: Go do dad stuff.

Frost: Yeah, I have Christmas cookies to wrap up. For real.

WCP: I have some weed to smoke.

This has been fun!

Matt Frost everybody!

Frost: Word!

Image via http://mountpleasantmusic.blogspot.com/

Mount Pleasant isn't...just a location.

A recent post on Altered Zones featured a New Zealand group sporting the same name as one of D.C.'s most charming neighborhoods. The band's acoustic cover of Roy Orbison's "In Dreams"—spacey and droney with high-pitched vocals—is what caught the attention of the Pitchfork sister site, which focuses on "leftfield pop, experimental, and home-recorded sounds." I'd tell you why the site liked it, but the post is in French.

Other Mount Pleasant tracks sound sorta like their website looks: ambient and washed-out (with strange graphics and tiny font). "Summer Cut" is almost three minutes of looped, shimmery noise while "Sussudio" is a little more upbeat (but still fuzzy).

I declare no resemblance between our Mount Pleasant and the one from New Zealand. The latter can't boast Pica Taco, the 42 bus, or Ian MacKaye. New Zealand's Mount Pleasant could not be reached explain how it chose its name, but it might have borrowed it from a suburb of Christchurch.

TeenBeat Records had its big reunion do at the Black Cat on Saturday. (Before the show, BYT interviewed the label’s founder, Mark Robinson, Deborah Solomon-style.) Aaron Leitko was at the gig, as was J.L. Fischer, and pretty much every other D.C. music geek. The verdict? Leitko’s review for WaPo was tepid. Fischer said it was dece, but Unrest should have played “Skinhead Girl.” Dan Kois called the scene “pleasantly bananas.” Consensus: Nostalgia counts for something.

Speaking of music geeks, they have 14 new reasons to love Pitchfork. By 14 new reasons, I mean a collective of 14 new music blogs feeding content to a new sister site dedicated to obscure DIY stuff.

She and Him played the 9:30 Club on Friday after releasing a new music video earlier that day. I didn’t go the show; Zooey Deschanel and I are in a fight on account of she married Ben Gibbard instead of eloping with me to Paris, where we would listen to old records, run fast and loose with iconclastic ex-pats, and live in a kooky yet tasteful apartment at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Speaking of the 9:30, the Tallest Man on Earth just added a date there for the fall. TMOE has moved up the rungs of the venue ladder each time he’s been through town, and for good reason. Mark Oct. 3 on your calendars.

Do you like Bonnie Prince Billy? If so, you might consider donating to the recovery of Phosphorescent’s stolen gear, ’cause Matthew Houck has got plenty of BPB-grade material trapped in him.

A final bit of TeenBeat nostalgia—Unrest, ca. 1993—to play me out:

"The one thing that I find is really driving the underground music scene is the Pitchforks," says singer Martin Cesar. "It's whether you get a good review or not. In our case, we sort of got what some people would call a 'high bad' review. So it didn't generate anything." Which means you very well may have missed Think About Life's 2009 album, Family (Alien8), and its 10 tracks of upbeat and ecstatic pop music.

These are carefree dance songs for punctuating perfect summer days and nights. It's fun-loving music to sate the pop appetites of kids waxing nostalgic for the days before MGMT decided it was the Flaming Lips.

A marked departure from the lo-fi twee-punk of Think About Life's 2006 debut, Family may end up being but a step in the group's evolution. After a couple lineup changes—Greg Napier replaced Matt Shane behind the drum kit and Calia Thompson-Hannant came aboard to handle bass and spare vocal duties—Think About Life's first album is nowhere to be found in its live set.

"We're focusing on Family because we decided that we wanted to go for a new approach for a lot of the songwriting and the songs to play," Cesar says. "We just want to move forward, and we've started writing new songs right now. We're concentrating more on the new stuff."

The group has sprinkled a few new tunes into recent live sets, so expect to hear some funky, ecstatic songs along with cuts from Family. Drawing inspiration from Matisse paintings, Cesar says he has big hopes for the new tracks. "Personally, I want to create something that is a bit more focused and a bit more melodic," Cesar says. "It's all about expanding from what we had on Family."

If Think About Life hasn't established much of an American fanbase, its current jaunt could change that—not that the band tailors its music to fit any locale's tastes. "We're not trying to make one form of music that really connects itself to one part of the world." Cesar says. "The beauty of this project is the fact that we're actually experimenting and trying different things. Some songs come off with pop arrangements, and some a bit less. Within that, there's still sort of the adventurous, trying-new-things aspect."

Think About Life performs tonight with Dragonette at DC9.

TODAY: MGMT, Congratulations—leaked March 2010; out April 13.

Two things you should know: One, YFPT loves—loves!—the title of the new MGMT album. Is it a cheeky reference to the solid taste in music that the band thinks you’ve displayed when you go out and purchase (or download, heh) the album? Is it a pat on the back for a self-deemed job well done? Is it a handshake to be received once you’ve made it through the 12-minute opus the band’s stuck smack dab in the middle of the album?

Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Nope. Despite our best efforts, our zen approach to shining up our crystal ball has drawn a blank.

Maybe this’ll help?

Nope.

Here’s the thing, this new MGMT album is pretty great. But on it, the band–which, you’ll remember, had “Kids” blew all the fuck up a couple years back–has trended away from its electro side and toward its proggish psych-pop side—a move that may make things a bit less radio-ready then they were the last time out. We salute that.

And we’d like to think that Pitchfork will agree. But, back in ’07 reviewer Eric Harvey told the band that “electro-glam seems the ideal toward which” they should strive. Along with that pat on the noggin, he gave the band a 6.8.

And that brings us to two: To be frank, we also would have missed the MGMT turn-around.

Perhaps a mea culpa is in order?

So (things becoming clearer now). A-hem: YFPT is calling for an 8.2, and a positively glowing review that extols the band’s newfound sophistication.

After the demise of Beulah, Miles Kurosky laid low. In fact, it's been years since the world last heard from the pop guru. Beulah garnered both well-earned critical acclaim and a sizable cult following in the heyday of indie rock, but it never quite broached the mainstream. It's a shame too, because Kurosky has long displayed a knack for writing pop melodies that are both infectious and well-executed.

Earlier this month, Kurosky released The Desert of Shallow Effects, his long-awaited follow-up to Beulah's swan song, Yoko. It's more upbeat than its predecessor, and it's one of the most intricately arranged works Kurosky has had a hand in to date. The strong melodies are still there, though perhaps more subtly, and the album brims with woodwinds, brass, and all sorts of unexpected turns. Lyrically, Kurosky retains his dark sense of humor—punctuating personal traumas with clever turns of phrase. I recently spoke with Kurosky, who performs tomorrow night at DC9, while he was hanging out in the parking lot of Sun Studios in Memphis. We talked about his new album, the plight of the starving artist, and his disdain for the emotional acting of Celine Dion.

Washington City Paper: Would you say this new record is an extension of what you were doing with Beulah?

Miles Kurosky: It is, but it isn't. It's become abundantly clear to me after reading some of the reviews and talking to people, that I'm in a sort of purgatory. If I make something too like Beulah, then I've lost it. If I go too far out from Beulah, then everybody's upset because there are so many people expecting a Beulah record.  I mean, if Beulah was together, it'd probably be just like this record.

WCP: With such dense instrumentation, I imagine there are a lot of overdubs.  Was that fun or painful?

MK: I love it.  It's what I hear in my head.  It's fascinating to me that I'm pegged as a pop songwriter, and somehow that means I should just play guitar, bass, and drums. Those are the bands that we should be giving shit to on a daily basis. Everybody picks up guitar, bass, and drums, and they don't challenge each verse and each chorus, you know? They do that blueprint over and over, but I don't want to do that.  I want to make something complex and lasting.

WCP: The lyrics are a bit different than what you did with Beulah.  Still darkly humorous, but maybe there's a bit less of your heart on your sleeve?  Was that intentional?

MK: No, and that bugs me. I read that thing in fucking Pitchfork, and that drives me nuts. They're all true stories. The story "Apple for an Apple" is about me wondering if I should believe in God as I'm about to be cut open. The first story is about my limbs failing me. One is about me being almost molested by a priest. They're all true stories, and I told them as stories. Somehow they've been deemed as third person narratives about other people, but every one of them is about me, or someone I love, or someone I've interacted with.

WCP: When you keep playing a song about a difficult personal experience years after the fact, is that always cathartic, or does it ever open old wounds?

MK: No.  I'm happy right now, and I'm in a good relationship with my life. Yoko is a break-up record, but I'm really good friends with the girl I wrote those songs about.

Do you ever notice people like Celene Dion? When she's singing a song, she over-emotes. It's like she's going through therapy every time she sings a song. She's either really emotional or she's an actress, and I think she's the latter. I can't imagine if every night you sang a song, that you went through those emotions again—that would be fucking insane, wouldn't it? It's the past, I've moved on from a lot of those things. It's more cathartic in the writing process. When you put it to tape, the weight lifts, and there's no reason to go through the same thing every time again.

WCP: Now that life is more stable—you have a wife and a house—does that affect your songwriting? There's always this idea that an artist has to be starving.

MK: I'm still a working-class musician. I'm still starving, I'm not rich person. But it's bullshit to think you have to be in pain to write good songs. I seriously doubt the Beatles were unhappy every step of the way. They were having the times of their lives during Rubber Soul and Revolver, and they sold thousands of records. To think the artist has to be in pain and suffering, that's more the listener and the critic. They put that on the artist. My heart was on my sleeve on the tape of Yoko—and Yoko seems to be well-received now, but it wasn't received well when it came out. People were upset that it was too personal.

WCP: Have you been sticking to the new record live, or do you toss in a few old Beulah songs as well?

MK: We'll play a few.  We've played "Emma Blowgun's Last Stand," "Landslide Baby," and "Popular Mechanics For Lovers."  People want to hear them, and after all they are my songs, so I don't have a problem with it.  I only have 10 songs on the record, and we need a full set, so I'd rather dip into my own songs than do a cover of someone else.

WCP: Are you eager to keep making solo records now, or is this it?

MK: I don't know.  This may be the last record I ever make, or maybe we'll do another in five or six years. It's hard to say. One thing I've learned after being away from music for six years is that I can walk away from it.

Miles Kurosky performs with Pancho-san at 8:30 p.m. tomorrow at DC9, 1940 9th St. NW. $12-$14. (202) 483-5000.

Each week, the Austin City Council offers its citizens an opportunity to address it on any topic that might be nagging at their conscious. A week ago, Leonard Davila got up to speak about the lack of support for Mexican musicians during SXSW. “The city of Austin is about to extend open arms to the world…it will mean millions of dollars to the local economy where many business and individuals will profit. Some ethnic communities will also be rewarded, and their culture celebrated. But one group in particular will be ignored, that being the Mexican-American community.”

Davila went on to ask his government to support his community by, in the future, reserving a park for SXSW Mexican-American-centric musical events. As is the norm, no one on the dais responded to his request.

As for this year’s festival (happening March 17-21), organizers this week announced a host of additions to the official line-up. Included were !!!, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Broken Social Scene, Fucked Up, and the xx. Though badges are still available, they are plenty expensive—so we suggest signing up for one of the Facebook pages that promises to keep you up to date on all of the free stuff that’ll go down. You know, if you don’t have hundreds of dollars to blow on the official gigs.

Pitchfork Music Festival 2010: Your FW pals saw Pavement twice: Once, at the 9:30 Club, where the band was excellent, and once at the Recher Theater, where it was unforgivably awful. We hear that this is how it goes with that band.

By our count, Pavement fans will now have eight chances to see the band on its stateside reunion not-tour: Five dates in Central Park, one at the Sasquatch Festival, one at Coachella, and now one at Pitchfork’s festival-circuit entry. We’d try and figure out the shreds/eats-it ratio, but there’s far too much in the way of variable factors. We’ll just say you’ve got a 50-50 shot of being totally disappointed.

Joining the reformed, breathing definition of musical hit-or-miss, will be LCD Soundsystem, Lightening Bolt, and Modest Mouse. Other acts will be announced in the coming weeks, but, if you don’t mind waiting to see who you’re paying for, you can buy tickets…right now! It’ll happen from July 16-18 in Chicago’s Union Park.

Welcome to the Pitchforkast. Here, your friendly Pitchforkast team (YFPT) will attempt to predict the Pitchfork rating for albums that have not yet appeared on that Web site. Note: Ratings estimates are arrived at through expert guesswork.

TODAY: Liars, Sisterworld—leaked January 2010; out March 8

Holy dude do those Pitchforkers love their Liars. Ratingswise, Brooklyn’s finest rack up an Average Pitchfork Rating (APR) of 7.97—a solid pretty good that would be darn near very good if it wasn’t for that pesky pretty okay (6.3) the band got for its They Were Wrong so We Drowned. They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, Drum’s Not Dead, and Liars? Not a single one of those suckers came in under 8.1.

‘Course, as we all know, love for a recording does not guarantee one’s ability to write about it. Over the years, Pitchfork has collectively struggled to get a clear picture of just what it is that draws the publication to that band. Here, Jess Harvell’s metaphor-heavy treatment of the band’s last full-length release can stand in: “In essence, Liars is scorched-blacktop biker music played through the art-rock filter of a band that's spent the last few years steeped in the bleak sounds of German new wave and early industrial.”

We know about (indeed we have some personal experience with) writing about music. And we’re pretty sure that the overprose kicks in when a critic doesn’t really have much to say. The members of Liars seem to delight in compounding that problem by throwing their reviewers the sort of curveballs that’ll make you try and describe something by using “scorched-blacktop biker music played through the art-rock filter of a band that's spent the last few years steeped in the bleak sounds of German new wave and early industrial.”

Though YFPT thinks that this new Liars album, called Sisterworld, may be a bit more focused than the trio’s past attempts, we’re pretty sure that it’ll provoke some crazy, long-winded metaphor—even as it continues the band’s trend of pretty OK to very good ratings. So, YFPT has determined that Liars latest will earn an...

8.4. And that its reviewer will go on and on and on about it.