A new Sufjan Stevens album? No, but you'd be forgiven if you thought so. Anathallo's Canopy Glow (out November 18th on Anticon) is better than 2006's Floating World, which was very good in its own right. I can't and won't say much because I have to write a detailed review for a publication, but those of you who enjoy sensitive folkie singer/songwriters, skewed marching bands, and the Glee Club of Mars -- not to mention imagery that is both overtly Christian and wildly creative -- will find much to love here. It's this year's Come On, Feel the Illinoise.

I just read that they've signed with Anticon, but I can't seem to find info about the release date of the new cd... What is the date?

Have you heard Welcome to the Welcome Wagon? I think THAT'S this year's Come On, Feel the Illinoise. And it IS Sufjan Stevens.

I have not, but I'll certainly check it out. That Sufjan gets around.

Ben, the new Anathallo album is on Anticon Records, and is out November 18th.

My review of this very fine album is up on the Paste website.

Bravo!

Weird album cover...

that album cover is actually a fairly well known painting by Tim Lowly, a fairly well known painter among circles such as ours. He is the primary caretaker of his severely disabled daughter Temma and often paints her with painstaking and loving attention to detail. I just saw that particular painting--Temma on Earth--live at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle and it was quite moving. (It's much bigger than an album cover.)

Wow.. I thought it looked painterly, but I couldn't be sure. That's impressive.

Do you know if he's still exhibiting at Frye?

Oh, and to keep this on topic, the new song sounds good. I'm glad they're keeping to the polyrhythm, it gives the songs a lot of energy. The stuff I heard from the last album sounded pretty, but a little sedate in comparison their Holiday at the Sea EP[.

It's on through Jan 4.

Pitchfork weighs in today and it's not pretty. I remember this from the Floating World review. They're too busy comparing Anathallo to Sufjan to pay attention to the music.

I'm convinced that half of the Pitchfork reviewers don't bother to, you know, actually listen to the music. That's so unhip. Why waste time with actual songs when you can go get another tat?

Or they're too busy launching un-funny webcomedies. At least they still have OK news updates.

This may be derailing the conversation too far from its intended topic but I want to pursue the Pitchfork gripes further. I agree with many of them. Sometimes it feels as though some (many) of the writers choose certain artists/bands and then take pleasure in snubbing everything they do, especially if the band is widely embraced by "half-way indie lovers"--and by half-way indie lovers I mean those of us who like the music but aren't about to buy into the image or play the look-how-obscure-my-taste-is card for prestige. It frustrates me as it frustrates many of you.

However.

Most of the frequent commenters in the music forum obviously still read Pitchfork reviews often enough to get frustrated by them on a regular basis. Why are you/we still reading Pitchfork? For those of you that write about music professionally is it simply because you need to keep your finger on the pulse of a prominent taste-maker? What about the non-writer music enthusiasts, why do you still read Pitchfork?

I personally like Pitchfork because I know I'll find reviewed the albums I expect to be reviewed, but I'll also be introduced to new stuff on a regular basis and the criticism is reliable enough that even if they give it a bad review I can tell, within a reasonable margin of error, if I'll like the music. I have found several bands/albums that I like from bad reviews. Maybe there are other review sites out there that might do just as good a job, without some of the infuriating hipper-than-your-iliac tendencies. If any of you know of good sites that review a similar range of music at a similar pace (~5 albums/day) with an easily scannable format I'd love to hear about them and give them a try.

Recap:

1) Why do you read/visit Pitchfork?
2) What other sites would you recommend in Pitchfork's stead?

1) Simply because they do have a good music news section. I look at other sites too (Paste, Billboard, which are both sometimes more timely), but Pitchfork gets a lot of stories out there right away, and they cover a broad spectrum of music. And that's about it.

2) Popmatters (which, while not perfect, often presents fair reviews that aren't condescending), Onion AV Club, Daytrotter (for new music)

1) Love them or hate them (and I do a little of both), Pitchfork is tremendously influential. They can make or ruin a band's career. And they cover a lot of ground -- five new reviews every day, breaking news stories, occasionally interesting features. As someone who needs to stay on top of these things to earn at least part of my living, I can't afford to ignore Pitchfork. That said, they annoy me to no end. Perhaps you could tell. They crap all over Anathallo for sounding like Sufjan Stevens, which they do. And this is the same Sufjan Stevens that Pitchfork has awarded reviews of over 9.0 for his last three albums. Uh-huh. This is why I find them so maddening. There are a couple reliable voices at Pitchfork -- Amanda Petrusich and Steven Deusner. I will trust pretty much anything they write. Everybody else I take with a huge boulder of salt. And the never-ending snarkiness gets old quickly. Yes, you're young and hip. Good for you. Celebrate with a new tattoo. Now, can we get on with some intelligent musical commentary instead of the detailed recounting of the exquisite tuna rolls you ate with your girlfriend at the trendy new sushi place on the Upper East Side?

2) For print mags I'd recommend Mojo and Paste. Online, I'd highly recommend All Music Guide (allmusic.com), PopMatters, and the newly revived, pixel-only No Depression. I find that the hit to miss ratio for all three is about 80/20, and would be higher except for AMG's Tom Erlewine and his otherwise inexplicable delight in pop tarts like Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, etc. Down a notch are Stereogum, Pitchfork, Music for Robots, Aquarium Drunkard, and Gorilla vs. Bear, all of which are spotty, and all of which sometimes provide more scintillating writing than the print mags. And let me put in a plug for a couple A&F locals, Josh Hurst's The Hurst Review and Trip McClatchy's (teek's) Teenage Kicks, both of which are consistently well-written, thought provoking, and entertaining.

Well, I might be in the minority on this one.

I haven't yet heard the Anathallo album. I want to-- Andy's ringing endorsement is good enough for me-- and I agree that the Pitchfork review comes across as very elitist and hipper-than-thou.

But I don't necessarily fault them for giving an album low marks just because it sounds a lot like Sufjan (though whether this album sounds THAT MUCH like Sufjan, or deserves to be trashed so thoroughly, I couldn't say). Don't get me wrong: I like Sufjan. But, in the indie world, he's become some sort of deity, a genre unto himself, more or less based on one record. And while that record is very good, I think it's lead to an overestimation of just what Sufjan can do. Moreover, I remember that critique of Sufjan that Tom Erlewine wrote a couple years back, and while I hardly agree with all of it, one of his criticisms-- that Sufjan is essentially playing to the indie crowd and making music that's purposefully narrow in its appeal-- certainly seems like an increasingly real concern to me, the more Sufjan is regarded as indie royalty. And if we have half a dozen new bands this year whose sound largely apes Sufjan's giddy marching band sound, well, I can't help but feel a little cynical that maybe those bands are trying to cash in on indie trends.

But again, I'm not leveling any of these criticisms against Anathallo, necessarily; just observing that there could, conceivably, be some merit to them, at least hypothetically.

The fact that Anathallo sounds a lot like Sufjan doesn't particularly bother me. That's because innovation is highly overrated. In any case, it's almost non-existent. I can think of two bands/performers from this decade -- precisely two -- who have actually arrived at something of a new sound. That would be Sufjan Stevens and Sigur Ros. Everybody else is derivative. So the fact that Sufjan has created a new sound, and other bands/performers are imitating it, is hardly reason to dock the musicians who basically mimic that sound. That's the way these things work, and I don't think any less of, say, Badfinger or Big Star or Teenage Fanclub because they use(d) The Beatles as the template for their music.

And I remember that Tom Erlewine article, and although I respect him, I disagree with him on this particular point. That's because 98% of the musicians/bands out there make music that is purposefully narrow in its appeal. We don't criticize Jay-Z for not making a classical choral album. That's because he's a rap artist. We don't dock Kenny Chesney for not trying to sound like Metallica. That's because he's a country artist. So why should we dock indie musicians who, God forbid, make indie albums, and only indie albums? It makes no sense. Furthermore, when musicians/bands do break out of the mold and create incredibly eclectic music, that music is criticized (and I'm thinking specifically of Pitchfork's review of the extremely diverse debut album from Future Clouds and Radar) as "scattered" and "unfocused." There's no way to win here.

Anathallo made an album that sounds something -- and not entirely -- like Sufjan Stevens. It's also lovely, well written, well arranged, and full of moments of contemplative beauty. That's good enough for me. No, it does not sound like Kanye West. I'm okay with that.

But hasn't Anathallo been making music and going in this direction at the same time as Sufjan? It doesn't seem like Sufjan released the Michigan cd, then Anathallo formed and started copying him. I've always felt that they are really different. The marching band sound of Anathallo is different than the more symphonic sound of Sufjan -- just because there are a lot of unique instruments doesn't make them the same. I suppose it's inevitable -- most piano based rock music gets compared to Tori Amos, but I've always wondered why we tend to be narrow minded when it comes to instrumentation.

Well, it probably doesn't help that the last time I saw Sufjan and Anathallo they were on the same bill, Anathallo opening for Sufjan at Calvin College.

And yes, I suppose I agree that "mimicry" and "copying" aren't really the right approaches here. How about parallel paths? But I'm telling you, you could replace, say, "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades," from Sufjan's Illinoise album, with Anathallo's "The River" (from Canopy Glow), and no one would know the difference.

I completely agree wit this, and this is one area that Pitchfork completely fails in (but in which Popmatters, for instance, excels). Pitchfork routinely dismisses genre albums, or gives a half-assed review two years later if they review it at all. That nose-in-the-air mentality — that the only albums worth championing on the ones that fit into their 'cool' mold for the month — has made me look elsewhere for good writing (Andy listed a bunch of great sites).