I'm a big fan of indie music evangelism. I think the whole scene pumps out an amazing volume and variety of music, from the dream pop of a band like Charlene, to the quasi-techno of, say, Múm. It's all good stuff, and I'm amazed at the continual originality and musical innovation that rolls off the indie assembly lines. However, sometimes the indie bands, as well as the whole indie hype machine, backfire horribly. Clearlake's new album, "Cedars", is a perfect example of this kind of failure.

"Cedars" has come out to almost uniformly excellent reviews across Australia, and the UK and United States. Critics are hailing it as a possible top album of the year, and singing it's praises from the rooftops. Given the sort of positive press I was hearing, I was eager to get my hands on a copy of the record, and give it a listen for myself. Maybe I was expecting a lot, given the hype, but to be honest, this record is pretty weak.

It starts well, with Almost The Same, a reasonably fast piece that chugs along in a very pleasing manner. From there it's all downhill though. I would say that the rest of the songs were dull and uninteresting, but I don't actually think that there are that many songs. It's as if Clearlake just took the template for the first song, and churned out a half-dozen duplicates, which sound less and less appealing as you go along. It's not like other bands haven't done this, but this was supposed to be the album of the year that I was listening to!

The rest of the songs aren't that much better. The Mind Is Evil sounds like a band trying to be dark and mysterious, and failing horribly. I'd Like To Hurt You falls into the same trap, moping along with no particular end goal in sight, and being about as eerie as an episode of 'The Addams Family'. Vocalist Jason Pegg's off-key voice and disjointed delivery don't help either. Come Into The Darkness begins promisingly, with a wave of distortion and noise which suddenly collapses into a big dirty guitar that chugs away promisingly. Then the lyrical line comes in, about twenty beats-per-minute slower than the beat, and ruins the whole song.

When I voiced my disappointment with this album on a music forum that I frequent, I was greeted with a barrage of flames, with people saying that not only did I not "get it", I was also a homosexual, a cat rapist, and also that I was worse than the man who cancelled 'Hey Hey, It's Saturday!'. Maybe the rest of the world adores this record for some reason. But I just think it's too uneven, and too uninspiring to really warrant much praise at all.

I'm a big fan of indie music evangelism. I think the whole scene pumps out an amazing volume and variety of music, from the dream pop of a band like Charlene, to the quasi-techno of, say, Múm. It's all good stuff, and I'm amazed at the continual originality and musical innovation that rolls off the indie assembly lines. However, sometimes the indie bands, as well as the whole indie hype machine, backfire horribly. Clearlake's new album, "Cedars", is a perfect example of this kind of failure.

"Cedars" has come out to almost uniformly excellent reviews across Australia, and the UK and United States. Critics are hailing it as a possible top album of the year, and singing it's praises from the rooftops. Given the sort of positive press I was hearing, I was eager to get my hands on a copy of the record, and give it a listen for myself. Maybe I was expecting a lot, given the hype, but to be honest, this record is pretty weak.

It starts well, with Almost The Same, a reasonably fast piece that chugs along in a very pleasing manner. From there it's all downhill though. I would say that the rest of the songs were dull and uninteresting, but I don't actually think that there are that many songs. It's as if Clearlake just took the template for the first song, and churned out a half-dozen duplicates, which sound less and less appealing as you go along. It's not like other bands haven't done this, but this was supposed to be the album of the year that I was listening to!

The rest of the songs aren't that much better. The Mind Is Evil sounds like a band trying to be dark and mysterious, and failing horribly. I'd Like To Hurt You falls into the same trap, moping along with no particular end goal in sight, and being about as eerie as an episode of 'The Addams Family'. Vocalist Jason Pegg's off-key voice and disjointed delivery don't help either. Come Into The Darkness begins promisingly, with a wave of distortion and noise which suddenly collapses into a big dirty guitar that chugs away promisingly. Then the lyrical line comes in, about twenty beats-per-minute slower than the beat, and ruins the whole song.

When I voiced my disappointment with this album on a music forum that I frequent, I was greeted with a barrage of flames, with people saying that not only did I not "get it", I was also a homosexual, a cat rapist, and also that I was worse than the man who cancelled 'Hey Hey, It's Saturday!'. Maybe the rest of the world adores this record for some reason. But I just think it's too uneven, and too uninspiring to really warrant much praise at all.