Quote:
Originally Posted by RVCA
Hmm, I wouldn't be so sure, Janszoon. If Silent Shout is the slightly edgy older sister who drops acid every once in a while and reads Huxley religiously, Shaking the Habitual is the younger brother who went off the deep end and joined a Scientology-esque cult of gender neutrality and intense drug use. My point is that Silent Shout is poppy and easily digestible, while STH is almost entirely not, so liking one is no guarantee of liking the other.
That being said, I didn't like Shaking the Habitual, and not partly because the Dreijers seem to have lost all pop sensibility about their music. That's probably the main reason, but the second reason is the bloatedness-- it's as if they had no road map for their songs and instead of taking them somewhere, they just let them ramble for 8-10 minutes at a time. It was a trial in patience and though it was interesting at first, I think they could have cut the whole thing in half and been better for it. But even if it was a nicely shaped, 40-minute package, it still wouldn't be something I could foresee myself listening to again at any point in the near future. The synth-tribal-industrial-funk just isn't my cup of tea.
2/5 - dislike
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Now a positive review
Shaking The Habitual is completely unlike the rest of the Knife's discog.
Deep Cuts it's not. Oh no, it's an outrageously different beast altogether. If
Silent Shout was the door leading into experimentalism, STM is the 3-story mansion they enter. Track after track are filled to excess with noises, detailed layers of sounds interweaving every which-way. Not to mention ambient, droney landscapes that almost make me think of Godspeed! if they were an electronic band. The Knife really take a left turn on terms of how different it really is from their other previous releases.
All In All,
Shaking The Habitual is a challenging piece of music, it really takes a lot to fully digest. But once it hits you, it's unlike any album you'll ever have the pleasure to listen too this year.
4.5/5 - love