Seriously Brian, this could have been a good album. "This Is What It Sounds Like" is a great opener. It reminds me of bands like Queens Of The Stone Age who show that rock can still be credible. "Mother â04" and "One Title Of Your Choice" aren't so bad either; in fact, they remind me of Sparta's better moments.
Seriously Brian, do you think you should have spent most of the album trying to sound like Sunny Day Real Estate when you know that your voice is nowhere near as strong as Jeremy Enigk's? Instead you sort of sound like that guy from Moneen; not the little spastic guy, but the one with the dreads. I mean, I miss the time when the word "emo" wasn't an insult, but just because you transition from soft note picking to loud progressions and sing in a muted voice doesn't mean you are going to bring it back.
Seriously Brian, did you need to have all these extended instrumental parts on your album? "KTCOKW" really starts to drag after about four minutes and the screams you throw in do nothing to help it out. Then there is "A Ride Home From Mars." I know tape looping can be a fun little experiment, but did you need to make a whole song of just that, and then follow it up with an almost entirely instrumental track?
Seriously Brian, you seem like a nice enough guy, you even recommend that people check out some pretty cool shit in your liner notes, like literature by Joyce, Vonnegut, and Whitman, bands like Kill Sadie, Braid, and Jawbreaker, and films by Charlie Kaufman and Akira Kurosawa, but that doesn't change the fact that most of this album just comes off kind of boring and unconvincing.