Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
amazing instrumental pop, 26 Jun 2004
It's difficult for new artist to add to the accumulated musical capital but Ratatat have done so. Here we have instrumentals written with passion and delivered with thoughtfulness. The album hangs together well. I have several hundred CD's and this comes in my top 20. It just keeps demanding another play. This is maybe the biggest advancement to instrumental music since Tubular Bells.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
last marvel from NYC, 4 April 2005
Ratatat's debut album is another piece of superb music coming from NYC. Together with TV on the Radio, this guitar duo are -in my opinion- the most innovative band in the "popular" independent music scene.
Despite what can be said, this is mainly a guitar album. The two guitars create extremely rich music all over the album, through a perfect combination of melodies and armonies; moreover, the absence of vocals contributes to this feeling that we are listening to musicians rather than to rockstars. Besides, there is an electronic programming which is variate, original and with good taste, in contrast to other efforts by less talented bands (the Killers for example), and gives the album both rythm and a modern atmosphere.
Some people objected that the 11 songs are kind of similar. After every listen I disagree more and more. The album combines high-tempo songs (as Seventeen Years, Breaking Away -my fave- or Germany to Germany) with more ambient songs, and the voice cuts between some songs are yet another subtility of the album.
I don't really manage to find a similar artist, maybe it can remind vaguely The Notwist, but this is definetely a piece of new music, worth checking by your own, especially if you are fed up of post-Strokes bands.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not bad, 25 May 2004
By A Customer
Actually 3 and a half stars. This is chilled-out instrumental guitar music. That said, on most of the songs the guitars are so processed that they sound more like a synthesizer or electric organ. A couple of welcome exceptions to this are '17 Years' and 'Desert Eagle', on which we get to hear some riffs and licks that actually sound like a guitar. Elsewhere the album is distinctly more ambient (perhaps TOO ambient for some), and so is likely to appeal to apres-clubbers and smokers. Be warned that it takes several listens to fully appreciate the finer subtleties of this album, and, as with most chill-out music, you will only feel like listening to it in a particular mood. Generally speaking, the little ditties that these boys purvey are superbly composed, and the addition of electric guitars to the chill-out genre is, in my opinion, most welcome. There are also moments so atmospheric, such as on 'Cherry', that I was half expecting a chorus of violins to start playing. But, alas, no violins. And despite the quality composition and pioneering genre hybridisation, the slight repetitiveness, simplicity and mediocrity of some songs will ensure that not more than a couple will make it onto the I-Pod playlist.
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