Warner Bros / Wea
2004
Strange We Should Meet Here
About This Album
If there were ever a middleman between the guitar and laptop-driven lushness of Daniel Anderson and counterpart Michael Harris' righteous post-hardcore shriek, well, Idiot Pilot must have let him go. Strange We Should Meet Here, the Washington duo's Reprise debut, aligns these disparate elements for a sound that's jarring, interesting, frustrating, and ambitious. "Open Register"'s programmed rhythm skitters beneath enormous reverb vocals and a drippy, almost synth pop melody, but the beauty's exploded by Harris' scream of "WE'RE TRYING TO HELP YOU!" He sounds exasperated and angry, like a panicky air traveler or an overwhelmed crossing guard. He also takes you right out of an otherwise gorgeous song. Maybe that's Idiot Pilot's intent, to grow the ugly blossom. But its frequency of use makes the scream lose its teeth. There's Harris screeching in the background of "Moerae (The Locust)" -- the rest of the time it's effective indie electronica driven by a shuffling drum track and atmospheric piano chords. And the rich, head cold quality of "Lucid"'s electronics is after "Militance Prom," which -- with its bundle of rapping, Radiohead, and more yelling -- borders on novelty.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,5 and 11)

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