Released - 1/18/11
Label - Woodsist
BLURB - 'Man, everyone's been buying this cd lately - I don't get it. I'm friends with the one guy and even just last year he was begging me to try and find gigs for them,' said the cashier as I bought the album. Who really knows why some bands become or don't become popular. But like the cashier said, they're just now starting to get big (at least by Brooklyn standards), so I had to check out Ducktails. What I ultimately discovered was that "Arcade Dynamics" is just another over-hyped, hipster blog-worthy release that isn't anything spectacular. Musically it sounds like Real Estate meets Panda Bear and is something mindless you can listen to in the background at work, but I'm still having trouble justifying the $13.99 I paid for it.
Rating - 5.5 out of 10
FULL STORY - Most of "Arcade Dynamics" is a collection of airy and light do-it-yourself tracks, that sound like something any of my friends could have made over a long weekend. It's not this special album that so many people are making it out to be. One aspect of the record that does come off as somewhat creative is the way in which the guitars are packaged. The majority of the songs were recorded with multiple guitar tracks going on at once. This gives the music a nice texture and warmth. Despite the lo-fi production values, the inclusion of so many varying guitar lines in each song provides a great sense of depth.
What's unfortunate, is that this depth of atmosphere and mood gets lost in a sea of redundancy. There is almost no variation on this Ducktails record. So even when you come across a bright spot, it just gets endlessly repeated until you grow sick of it.
'Hamilton Road' is one of the few songs on the record that I actually haven't gotten sick of yet. The track is extremely relaxing and mellow, and you just kind of drift off as you're listening to it.
'Killin the Vibe' is what some would say, the 'single' of the album. In all seriousness, it's an OK track, but like much of the album, becomes all too monotonous after about two minutes of listening to it. There is another version of the track out there that features Panda Bear (which is much better). Why it's not on the album is beyond me. This was also a contributing factor to the hype of Ducktails. Everything Panda Bear touches usually turns to gold (see also collaborations with Atlas Sound and Pantha du Prince), so once word got out that Ducktails and Panda Bear had done a track together...basically everyone rushed out to get their hands on the album.
"Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics" is nothing short of lackluster. If you're thinking about maybe picking it up, I'd probably advise to just download 'Hamilton Road' and the Panda Bear version of 'Killin the Vibe.'
Take a listen to 'Hamilton Road.'
Tracks
1.) In the Swing
2.) Hamilton Road
3.) Sprinter
4.) The Razor's Edge
5.) Sunset Liner
6.) Little Window
7.) Killin the Vibe
8.) Arcade Shift
9.) Don't Make Plans
10.) Art Vandelay
11.) Porch Projector
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