Average Metacritic score is 85 (28 reviews):

by Dirty Projectors
Bitte Orca (Domino)
Release Date: June 9
Metacritic Ranking: 100 (5 star)
Pitchfork: 9.2




http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/musi ... sp?ID=1762

5 stars

by Andy Pareti June 1, 2009

While a completely different species, musically speaking, than Animal Collective's monolithic Merriweather Post Pavilion, the Dirty Projectors's Bitte Orca is every bit that album's equal in terms of navigating uncharted sonic territory. Virtuosic but playful, unpredictable yet accessible, it's not a genre album, encapsulating too many ideas to be filed conveniently under an "indie" or "experimental" tag. Bitte Orca is a careening, three-way balancing act between the finger-picked experimentation of the Books, the math rock of Battles, and Of Montreal's gallivanting pop. If that sounds a bit scattershot in theory, the band smelts its influences into a nearly unrecognizable alloy, one that gleams with a newness that is realized in that ever-so-slender window of opportunity where each member of a band is firing on all cylinders.

The sound that bandleader Dave Longstreth has created on Bitte Orca is one of a chugging, smoke-huffing machine. Songs like "Temecula Sunrise" and "Useful Chamber" jerk and cough like so many churning cogs, occasionally driving their tempos up or down unexpectedly. One of the few exceptions to this nearly uniform musical theme is "Stillness Is the Move": The organic odd-man-out, it's a candy-coated pop song that might be what Mariah Carey would sound like accompanying a snake charmer's flute; the exotic loop that opens the song is hypnotizing, and band members Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman coo like pop princesses lost in a New Delhi marketplace. "Remade Horizon" opens with a summery folk trot before a synth dart tears through the acoustic guitars, making way for an emerging, corkscrew prog riff. Finally, the song culminates in a staggering vocal hocket courtesy of Deradoorian.

The Dirty Projectors have always possessed the qualities needed to make a great album, but until now, the band has never demonstrated those traits all at once. There have been moments of expert musicianship and melodic genius sprinkled throughout their career (2007's Rise Above, a reimagining of Black Flag's Damaged, foreshadowed some of the band's bravery, even if it was a bit misguided), but they never found a strong enough songwriting foundation. They've done it here, and Bitte Orca is close to a masterpiece.

probably the BEST album from 2009...

I was surprised that I liked this. I think what separates it from other crappy indie "sonic ground breaking" albums like Animal Collective is it is firmly rooted in R&B.

Most of the year it's been battling Sonic Youth as my #1 record of '09. It finally lost out to SY, but owns a very solid #2 on my list. Well done, lads (and laddettes).

I was really prepared to hate this. When Rise Against came out and there was a little amount of hype behind that, I thought it was the worst album of the year. I hated that shit. I hated the other release of theirs I heard a few years back, too.

This though, I gave a shot. And it's been one of my most listened to and most enjoyed records of the year. I'm not going to talk about Longstreth being a genius or the time signature changeups of the harmonies or anything. every song just has some sort of weird groove. Every vocal delivery somehow lodges itself in my head.

It's for sure one of my favorites of 2009 and far and away the biggest surprise.

Now go back and revisit Rise Above, and I bet you'll like it. I hated it, too, at first.

This is a great album. Wish I'd gotten to see these guys live.

Fuck this band and this album. Unfuckinglistenable.

I'm just not sure about this album. I don't hate it and I don't love it. I guess I just tolerate it.

Yeah, I saw them about a year before this album released and it... was... great. I'd never heard their music before and I was sold after the first 30 seconds.

ive only heard that stillness is the move song and its alright i guess but not earthshattering as mentioned a bit here. i might listen to the rest of the album. probably not

and is it wrong that i'd feel a bit on the gay side if this was blasting from my car

this album is made by "stillness is the move". the rest is okay. but after hearing the david byrne pairing on "dark was the night", i was a little disappointed.. should make my top 39

i hate it. tried to get into it, and it was impossible.

yeah. my brother ADORES these guys.

I kind of feel like strangling them all.

The vocals honestly make me feel violent. Watched the video to try once again to get some flicker of understanding...
but it just made me hate them more.

Oh! white music school kids "discovered" chimurenga guitar and call and response vocals!

sorry

You could theoretically say this about just about every kind of music white people have played for the past hundred years.

Except, you know, classical and Appalachian and European folk. And polka/klesmer/whatever.

i'm somewhere between two guns and f u dave's stance on this.

yes, yes