Fortunately, that somebody, talking about the Great Lakes Myth Society, writes for the Village Voice:
The sunny vantage of “Midwestern Main Street”—which recalls classic alt-pop like the La’s or even R.E.M. with its maddeningly catchy lilt—might as well be titled “Main Street, Anyplace.”
The same could be said for two of Bouquet’s other great tunes: the thundering “Nightfall at Electric Park” and hard-drinking “Queen of the Barley Fool.” Both evoke the historical bent of a band like the Decemberists—literate, highly postured, and influenced by immigrant folk traditions—but without a whiff of the unbearably fey indie-rocker-as-Bartleby preciousness.
I’ve been gone for six weeks so I haven’t bought the album or read all the reviews, but Cavalieri grazed the target in his brief review. GLMS has roots and is not Sufjan Stevens. More to come.
That wasn’t a dig at my Hope College Homey Sufjan was it? I like GLMS (and TOBASOL) a lot, but Sufjan is amazing. Plus he just seems so–for lack of a better word–decent.
If he’s a preening, narcissistic asshole or something, I’d probably just rather not know.
Definitely not a dig at Sufjan. I think he’s great, too, but GLMS certainly offers a different type of music, even though it springs from similar interests in regional identity. I hate when people describe GLMS as “a cross between Sufjan Stevens and ____.” It’s lazy and not altogether accurate.