Grandaddy - Sophtware Slump [Bonus CD] (CD)

All Music Guide

Picking up where their Signal to Snow Ratio EP left off, Grandaddy's wittily named second album The Sophtware Slump upgrades the group's wry, country-tinged rock with electronic flourishes that run through the album like fiber-optic lines. Arpeggiated keyboards sparkle on "Hewlett's Daughter" and "The Crystal Lake," and wind, birds, and transmissions hover around the songs' peripheries, suggesting a Silicone Valley landscape. Jason Lytle's frail, poignant vocals provide a bittersweet counterpoint to the chugging guitars and shiny electronics that envelop him like a cockpit or a cubicle on "Chartsengrafs" and "Broken Household Appliance National Forest" and set the tone for melancholy ballads like "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot," "Miner at the Dial-a-View," and "Jed the Humanoid," the story of a forgotten, alcoholic android. Lost pilots, robots, miners, and programmers try to find their way on The Sophtware Slump, an album that shares a spacy sadness with Sparklehorse's Good Mo...rning Spider and Radiohead's OK Computer. Though it's a little more self-conscious and not quite as accomplished as either of those albums, it is Grandaddy's most impressive work yet and one of 2000's first worthwhile releases. [There is also a special edition that was released in the US with a bonus CD attached, featuring six bonus tracks: "First Movement/Message Fade," "Our Dying Brains," "What Can't Be Erased," "Wives of Farmers," "Street Bunny," and "XD-Data II"] - Heather Phares, All Music Guide Read more Less