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Choose Your
Own Adventure: The Long Defeat
The Long Defeat, the latest offering from the Chapel Hill Trio Choose Your Own Adventure, is a hypnotic trip into that most protean of all genrespost-rock. Post rock is the ultimate refuge for the lazy critic. Jazzy improv, apocalyptic rock, and general jamminess can all be post-rock. What do any of these different styles have in common? Nothing really, and Choose Your Own Adventure fit in well to all three of the above categories to one degree or another. At first, The Long Defeat seems to owe more to the Texas school (Explosions in the Sky) of post-rock rather than to the Chicago school (Tortoise et al.), but as the second song rolls forth from the speakers, it becomes evident that CYOA apparently studied at both august institutions. It is definitely more rock than post, and that is fine by me, but CYOA does a good job of incorporating some jazzier, Chicago-like elements into their own particular apocalypse. If you listen closely enough, you might even notice hints of the great-granddaddy of the more intense version of post-rock: Rodan. Im not going to lie; I love Rodan, and anytime someone dishes me up something with a hint of Rodan hidden in it, I eat it up. The hint is minor and subtle. There are no grindcore operas of hoarse despair; all of the songs here are instrumental, and they dont suffer from the lack of vocals. Another advantage of CYOA is the length of this album. Often times, these types of records can become ponderous and boring as they stroll towards the 70-minunte mark. Songs will be cluttered with unnecessary noise or movements (think Godspeed) or will just repeat already well developed ideas (think Tortoise). Not so with CYOA. The Long Defeat is chock full of ideas and dynamism; enough for Godspeed to make a double album out of it. It is hard not to hit the repeat button when this album endswhat else could you ask for?
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