year-end #1

so, it's time for year-end lists. let's get things started by taking care of the gloomy sour stuff right away.

-disappointment of the year
Parenthetical Girls - Entanglements (Tomlab / Slender Means Society)

this was really inevitable.
by no means is entanglements a bad record. it's well produced, has in "a song for ellie greenwich" one of p-girls best songs to date, and retains frontman zac pennington's unique warble as well as his sharp, affecting songwriting. the problem is twofold:
1.) pretty much all of the remaining songs on the album feel loosely constructed / reaching in too many directions, too grandiose (thanks to ever-present orchestral arrangements), at times awkwardly vaudevillian or showetune-y, and in general just a bit too much of a chore to listen to.
2.) i loved (and continue to love) the last p-girls album, 2006's Safe As Houses so dearly that anything that followed was practically doomed to pale in comparison.
pennington and co. have aimed high on this record, as a band surely should, but as a result they unfortunately have missed the mark by a considerable degree.

alright, so now that i have that off my chest, all positive vibes for the rest of this...thing.