They All Look Pretty To Me

EMA “Anteroom”

There’s a lot of alt-rock DNA in this song — the style of melody, the guitar style, the tone of the lyrics — so it’s disconcerting when the drums kick in and sound totally awful. I mean, the performance is fine, but the recording is horrible and inept. In my mind, I can hear very clearly what this would have sounded like if it had been recorded by, say, Steve Albini, and the gap between that ideal and what is actually on EMA’s record is enough to aggravate me and make me like this record less than I would otherwise. (Which is to say, a LOT.) Everything else about this song is clever and wonderful. Why would anyone choose to undermine their composition with such a pathetic excuse for drum engineering? I don’t think it adds anything to the atmosphere, it just sounds shoddy and limp. There are moments in this song that should have some cathartic power, and here it just seems like that impulse is thwarted. I can only hope that was precisely the effect she was going for, but even then I think that could have been more fully realized by a skilled engineer. So frustrating!

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