The Receiver kill it with Length of Arms
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009Maybe you heard Decades, the debut album from Columbus-based band The Receiver. Based on their sales, though, I’m guessing you probably didn’t. No matter. Their sophomore album, Length of Arms, is stronger, more polished, and more enjoyable in every respect.
Why is it that second albums are invariably referred to as sophomore albums? Debut albums are never called freshman releases, nor are third albums ever called junior releases. Odd…
Let me get this out of the way: The Receiver are clearly influenced by Radiohead. This raises a couple of questions:
- What up-and-coming band isn’t influenced by Radiohead?
- Why don’t we all just listen to Radiohead and forget this making new music nonsense. Really, what’s the point?
Luckily, The Receiver provide the answer to the latter question. This album is so good that… so good that… it reminds me of this one time when I was over at my buddy’s place watching the Reds play Chicago, and after the game he played this disc, and I said who’s that, and he said it’s Radiohead, and I said I’ve never heard of them, so he tossed me the jewel case, and I looked at the artwork and liner notes, and we listened to the rest of the CD . This was back when I was still drinking, and I’m pretty sure we were drinking Maker’s Mark. Odds are I brought the bottle with me, because Greg is too cheap to share his booze.
So Length of Arms is a great album. Five stars.
Check out The Receiver on MySpace, and check out their award-winning video for their single, Visitor.
