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▒▒▒ ▒ ▒ ░░▄█▓▓ ▓▒██ ▄█▓▀█a long winter▀▓░░ ▓█ ▒ ▒▒▒
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├─── ──░─ ─-─ ──────────-───────────────░─────── ─────-────-──── ░ ──---─┐
| a long winter presents: ░ ▒ │
--──────────--──────────-─-── ─--- ─ ── ─ ─── ───---─────░────┤
│ album_information ▒
├──────-─────--────────────- --─────────-────-─ ───────────────────────░─┤
│░ artist: Minus The Bear ░ ░▒░
░| album: Highly Refined Pirates ░ ░▒ ░
label: Suicide Squeeze │ ░
▒│ genre: Indie │
░ │ released: May/18/2004 ▒
│ street: Nov/19/2002 │ ░
├──────────-─────────────────-───────-──────────── ──────────────────────┤ ░
░ │ release_information ░
▒ └───────────────────────── -- ───────── ──────────────────── ───────────┤
░ | tracks: 14 │ ▒
▒ │ size: 67,2 MB │
│ source: CDDA │
░│ ripper: dugbert │░
│ ░ quality: VBR/44.1 kHz/Joint-Stereo ▒░│
│░ encoder: EAC/Lame 3.92 ▒ ░ │
├────────── ─────────────-──── ───-──────────── ───-────────-─────░─░ ───┤
| track_list ▒░ ░ │
│ trk time title ░▒ ░ │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────── ───── ──░── ─────┤
│ 01 03:35 thanks for the killer game of crisco twister │
│ 02 03:32 monkey!!! knife!!! fight!!! │
│ 03 05:24 absinthe party at the fly honey warehouse │
│ 04 00:35 hey, wanna throw up │
│ 05 04:10 get me naked 2- electric boogaloo │
│ 06 03:03 we are not a football team │
│ 07 01:10 you kill bugs good, man │
│ 08 03:03 spritz!!! spritz!!! │
│ 09 04:05 women we haven't met yet │
│ 10 00:48 damn bugs whacked him, johnny │
│ 11 04:55 i lost all my money at the cock fights │
│ 12 02:09 andy wolff │
│ 13 05:13 let's play guitar in a five guitar band │
│ 14 00:50 booyah achieved │
├─────┬──--─ ─- │
│total│42:32 min │
├─────┴───────── ───── ─---────────── ────────────--───────────────────┤
│ release_notes │
├─────────────────────── ───────────────────----─────────────────────────┤
│ They may call this math rock but -- contrary to the attempt at │
│ pigeonholing -- it rarely gets boring. Which is usually a good sign │
│ that the usual musical designations don't really apply to Minus the │
│ Bear. The only question that comes up during a casual or earnest │
│ listen to their latest release, Highly Refined Pirates, is this: where │
│ would you place these guys if you had to? Then comes the rejoinder: │
│ who cares? Filled with complex guitar fingerwork, aural synth │
│ embellishment, and spiraling arrangements that recall everything from │
│ King Crimson to More Songs About Building and Food-era Talking Heads │
│ to later work from bands like Fugazi (especially The Argument) and │
│ Juno, Highly Refined Pirates is a trip through what's great about │
│ newer indie rock that doesn't sound like it's trying to be punk │
│ without the danger. Many songs on Highly Refined Pirates float │
│ ethereally above their conventionally driving drum and guitar lines, │
│ and pack a serious lyrical punch to boot. Such as "Get Me Naked 2: │
│ Electric Boogaloo" -- comedy! -- which boasts one of the coolest │
│ choruses ever committed to memory ("You said, 'My life's like a bad │
│ movie'/I said, 'That's true of all of us'/You said 'I've got to wake │
│ up so f**king early'/I said 'Maybe the director's turned on us'). Or │
│ "Let's Play Guitar in a Five-Guitar Band," a dense collection of │
│ echo-heavy vocals, light arpeggiation, distant distortion, and enough │
│ hammer-ons to make Eddie Van Halen proud. But the greatest thing about │
│ this Minus the Bear album is that it doesn't let its sonic complexity │
│ go to its head. Each of Highly Refined Pirates' songs is filled with │
│ tongue-in-cheek lyrical wordplay (like that cited above) or entitled │
│ with toss-off lines from Paul Verhoeven's outer space soap opera, │
│ Starship Troopers (samples: "You Kill Bugs Good, Man" or "Damn Bugs │
│ Whacked Him, Johnny"). Al in all, Highly Refined Pirates will probably │
│ satisfy the music notation nerds, the indie cynics, and the random │
│ listener searching for something indefinite in a saturated pop │
│ landscape looking to hawk the usual boring band du jour. │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ About ALW │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ALW is an internal group whose original intention was to make people │
│ see how much better the quality of a VBR album really was. Well, we │
│ pretty much succeeded, considering the scene is VBR now. So, we now │
│ have a new focus (since even pH has bitten the bullet, thank god): to │
│ be the best damn internal group there is. Whatever the album is, no │
│ matter what the genre (unless it's gay, we don't like gay), we will │
│ have ripped it. And to all you fags who wouldn't use VBR to save your │
│ life prior to 2004, we just wanted to say that we told you you were a │
│ stupid cocksucking bitch and that you were wrong, and now we want to │
│ rub it in, just because we can. │
│ │
│ Date of formation: 5/1/2003 (or, 10/2001 under TBR) │
│ Group info: #alw / alongwinter.net / alongwinter@hotmail.com │
│ Things we need: Sites, rippers, coders, your mom around our cock │
│ │
│ Shout Outs: │
│ (Scene) FNT, RNS, ESC, HXC, NUHS, QTXMP3, VIC, gF, COR │
│ (Not) TBR, ENT, IPS, IRO, RDF (for also releasing VBR) │
│ (Groups Who Suck) EOS (stop copying us), pH, KSi, KZT, DTA, iTS │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘