Return To Cookie Mountain was one of the more intriguing records of 2006. And it's not that Dear Science, doesn't match up; it's that it's trying too hard. It reminds me of Elvis Costello's Mighty Like A Rose, or Anthony Braxton's For Four Orchestras, or some of Evan Parker's solo pieces, or John Zorn's entire recorded output, or MTV Cribs: the accumulation and possession of resources is not a creative accomplishment in itself. Simply displaying the resources that you have at your disposal shouldn't be confused with doing something creative with them. Dear Science, isn't at the Zorn level of ostentatious McMansiony blandness, and it definitely has its share of exciting moments, but they're often ruined by insecure over-arrangements: "Hey, we didn't add this element; whether it's needed or not, let's pile it on just in case!" (and the static mastering, negating all dynamic shifts, certainly doesn't do it any favors)
Like the aforementioned Costello record, the neatly-stacked piles are so high that they obscure why they were stacked like that in the first place.
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