Alligator

This album has been added to 2 public lists:

• 

  2005

  James

  Alligator should have announced a new critical and commercial darling to the indie-rock scene, but for some reason many only caught up with the band a few years later with the release of Boxer. Calling Alligator a “grower” though, as many have, is absurd - a completely revisionist excuse for missing the boat. I’ve hardly been smacked harder in the face on first listen by an album this decade than I was the first time I heard the rolling chords of “Secret Meeting”. Matt Berninger writes about relationships, self-consciousness, ambition, and emotional paralysis through details that feel awkwardly lived rather than carefully poetic. The band’s tightly wound rhythms and surging guitars keep the songs from sinking into resignation. Tracks like “Mr. November” and “Abel” sound like panic trying to pass as confidence.

• 

  Of All Time

  Darby Dixon III