(Unlike on Mosaic, - more on that later) There's a very mysterious and airy atmosphere on this record and the production is excellent. 311 was more laid back than the spastic 80s punk-funk tradition they came out of and not near as suffocatingly serious as the nu-metal scene they’d rub elbows with in the 90s. This also works best as an album, the individual songs really complement each other so well. This is 311 at their most experimental and at their very best. These mantras start to feel hollow - cultish even. Transistor - My personal favorite of all the albums. “The image you have of me/ Is what I’d like to be,” sing-rapper SA Martinez spits a few songs later on “Make It Rough”. Before that, however, the messages are as general as “We are not so different, you and I/ No matter what we think,” as told to us by rap-singer Nick Hexum on “Revelation of the Year”. That’s probably why I enjoyed the EP-length Universal Pulse, although I will admit that Stereolithic picked up for me with closer, “Tranquility”, which reminds of a weird, reggae version of Wilco’s “My Darling”. Capricorn Records ( US label) (in 1997) recorded at and mixed at: NRG Recording Studios in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States. ![]() And, as was the case with Transistor, my threshold for the good times is about a half hour. But even as a 12-year-old, when 311 was one of my favorite bands, I could never make it through Transistor‘s 68 minutes.Īt 58 minutes, Stereolithic isn’t quite as hefty of an undertaking, but it sure comes close. At first, I blamed my sourness toward Stereolithic, their 11th full-length, on my age. After a time, though, the well-wishes, laid-backness, and elementary musings on space and nature start to grate. Lord knows there’s plenty of negative music out there, and not everyone wants to be reminded of how shitty life can be. The Omaha quintet always has been and always will be characterized by good vibes. It has little to do with the sonics and everything to do with the message, which is perpetually one of positivity. With 311, it’s easier to articulate a criticism against the length of some of their records. Yet, if something’s good, shouldn’t the length not be an issue? Shouldn’t you want more of what you love from a particular band? While I’ve since come around to Reflektor, I still can’t pin down why the runtime initially bothered me so much. ![]() “I liked Reflektor, but it was just too long.” That’s how I felt when Arcade Fire’s dancehall opus was first released. In many ways, it’s both logical and lazy to criticize an album for its length.
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