Dug-dug, da-der, da-dug-dug! Which song is that? See if you can guess. Want me to sing it again? OK, get ready: dug-dug, da-der, da-dug-dug! Need some more time to think? OK, I’m going to post a picture now, but after you’ve scrolled past that it’s officially time up and I’m going to give you an answer. What am I going to post a picture of? Dunno, maybe a dawn or some shit? Ooooh! No, it’s antidawn, isn’t it? So what’s the antithesis of dawn? Dusk? Yeah, I’ll post a beautiful picture of dusk. But remember, after you scroll past that picture the answer will be revealed, so only go there once you either have an answer or my devilish brain teaser has you officially stumped, OK? Dug-dug, da-der, da-dug-dug!
Give up? It was the sting from Shania Twain’s Man, I Feel like a Woman. Yeah, you all get it now you know the answer, ammi right?? This short exercise has absolutely no bearing on the remainder of the review, I just thought that this is the first post of the day and it’s always good to start off with a little brain exercise.
Just to establish one more time: I wasn’t going anywhere with that.
Aaaaaaaaaaah, s’Burial, innit? Burial is Burial is Burial is Burial.
I’ve mentioned the What is Music podcast in the past after their brilliant/fucking infuriating trawl through the Manics discography inspired my writing of the definitive and actual guide to the band’s discography. They’re currently covering Radiohead, a band absolutely in the top 1% of all time greatest artists – but, importantly, also in the top 0.5% of most fucking irritating – and have often suggested that Radiohead are often judged more harshly than other artists because of their past achievements and records that have legitimately redefined rock music. I hear that supposition, I really do, yet I retort with the actual truth: many Radiohead albums have just honestly been fucking gash.
Burial though… sorry, just need to make something clear:
Burial though, I feel like they do actually suffer from their continued excellence. William Emmanuel Bevan – for it is he – is unarguably one of the most influential, boundary pushing/expanding, and notable electronic music (or, y’know. any kind of music) producers of the 21st century, potentially all time. If I were so inclined, I could explain all of his technical accomplishments in the form that mark him out as almost lacking peers, but I do constantly worry about the general IQ of my audience relative to mine and if I started waxing lyrical about how Burial shortens the drum rhythm and reverb; and scrapes shingles off the suffrage Sucnotageโข; or how he put the bop in the bop shoo bop shoo bop, I worry it would just fly over many of you lovable nincompoops’ heads and sound like I was talking nonsense. In laymen’s terms: he makes bangers. Bangers the like of which we haven’t heard before. And, like, all the freaking time. I honestly don’t think the quality of his semi-regular output has ever dropped below ‘Holy Fuckballs’. The problem is, when the general quality remains so high, that sky high norm forces us to just accept pass off the incredible as the everyday. Radiohead’s massive highs are all the more impactful because they occasionally release some absolute dross. Like everything they’ve done in the last fifteen years. For example.
The ‘ANTIDAWN EP’ is absolutely cocking amazing. The music here is often truly overwhelmingly beautiful. It wouldn’t just fit nicely onto the recent rapturously received ‘Tunes 2011 – 2019‘ compilation, but easily be among the strongest tracks. If I’d never heard Burial before, I would absolutely be blown away and be struggling to think of any superior records released this year.
But that’s what Burial does, isn’t it? Burial being Burial being Burial being Burial. Excellence soon becomes expected until eventually your continued excellence just becomes commonplace. We’ve all been there. Well, I have, all you readers are absolute cretins. But lovable ones! Don’t forget to hit ‘subscribe’.
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