I thought Helplessness Blues was a step above the debut, but yeah, I like both considerably more than Crack-Up.

Been listening to this for a few weeks now via leak and I'm not really feeling it. It's sweeping and grand, but also a little boring and samey throughout. I always appreciated Fleet Foxes for their pop chops, but this progressive folk approach doesn't really fit their strengths.

There was only one Leland in the real world, but his doppleganger is still in the waiting room/Black Lodge. That's how Coop is able to interact with him and Laura there, and why Laura is both "dead, yet [she] lives" (at least, that's how I'm interpreting it)

What? Coop's doppleganger is clearly a vessel for BOB. He even has the same hair and outfit style as Silva did in the original seasons.

Disagree completely. The marble scene, Cooper hanging in the box, the doppleganger neuron Man from Another Place are all the kind of uncanney effects that get under my skin more than pristine, expensive CGI ever could. It's just unreal enough that it becomes spooky.

It just kind of makes you seem out of the loop though. Like, PWR BTTM are a small band, but not THAT small of a band, and this has been big news the past few days.

The person I was responding to had a heavy tone of "if you like pop music you have bad taste." It's a gross attitude that I generally associate with the 2000s, when indie culture had blown up just enough for people to be petty about it.

Counterpoint: Yes!

Or maybe people realized the haughty condescension of 90s and 2000s ("lol pop music is so bad look how cool I am listening to my GOOD music") was really dumb and made you kind of look like an asshole.

Culture is a lot of fun though.

It's a movie about internalized and externalized misogyny, depression, post-lapsarian corruption, and also Willem Dafoe getting his dick smashed.

Trash Humpers is excellent! Korine was born to make horror flicks.

Worse…or better?

But…it doesn't have an impact on your experience, but it means folks at home have live footage to watch and the people taking pictures/filing the concert have something permanent to reflect on when their fragile human memory goes all squishy.

Did they shit all over the Promise Ring? I always thought they were part of the p4k canon.

I actually really liked that Hotelier record, but I generally agree.

That's actually a great question. I've always liked how ATDI's lyrics inspire this sense of vaguely futuristic, dystopian alieness, but, yeah, it's also complete gibberish.

ATDI is a pretty massive band, especially for the AV Club's nerdy, 22-30ish demographic. I'm kind of shocked Slowdive didn't get a full review, but of all the releases this week I think this is probably the biggest.

They're absolutely a post-hardcore band. I know that tends to share a lot of overlap with emo (especially with 90s/2000s screamo/skramz coming into the conversation) but that doesn't mean they're an emo band.

Yikes, this review is so caught up in nostalgia and shameful reappraisal of things the author used to like that it's, to steal a word, "embarrassing."