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Rating:
From Chicago, Tim Kinsella's Joan Of Arc deserve to be remembered for the excellent works they've given us throughout the entire past decade, among which "How Memory Works" is, if not the pinnacle, certainly among the best, constantly teetering between indie punk rock sounds and more expansive atmospheres, genuine soft post-rock embroidery.
All eleven tracks of the album abound with reverberating arpeggios that make it unclear where they start and where they end, fractured rhythms and background rustling as if caused by grooves on the CD and more or less frequent jumps; the unforgettable voice, which can perfectly off-key if desired, sometimes in an enticing contrast with dreamy and intimately acoustic melodies on the brink of folk ("To've Had Two Of"), other times blending perfectly with more punk rhythms (the masterpiece "This Life Cumulative," "God Bless America").
Chirping robotic birds from 2199, xylophones that wrap around themselves ("Honestly Now"), deliberately poorly concealed electronic beats that perfectly marry guitars neither too clean nor too distorted: these are the salient features of these dreamlike watercolors that seem to come from a distant future, but in reality, they are a cornerstone of what Indie Rock in the USA was in the '90s, implosion and explosion, connection to tradition and total experimentation, but always, strictly, do it yourself.
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