Rating: 
I know I’m a little bit late with this review, since other people have already fueled the career of Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, but I feel like I have to encourage this even more so.
Much has been said about the singer/songwriter’s difficult past, and a few touch on his TV on the Radio/Grizzly Bear connections. I want to focus on the strength of his debut self-titled album.
As a fan of music, this is exactly what you want a debut album to be. You want to see a lot of promise, and you sort of want to see a weak spot or two; a weak spot shows that there is more to be improved upon; a hopeful glance into the future.
I expected this to be sort of a folk record, dominated by acoustic guitars and gentle vocals. From the opening track, “Buriedfed,” you can tell that this is not the case. It starts off gently, as many of the songs do, but then the song picks up with percussion, and the vocals really can stand alone. His voice is somewhere along the lines of a warble, but at the same time, there is a certain assuredness in its delivery. Imagine Conor Oberst if he used to sing hardcore tunes.
There is a lot of loss going on in this album, lyrically. It’s clear that MBAR has had some rough times, and he definitely uses that for his songs. The sad thing, and I don’t know if it is a personal reference or not, but a lot of the album questions the purpose of living, which I know can only come from a person who has truly been in that position. Its got a touch of tragedy, but you want to route for the man. My own personal reference reminds me of Eliott Smith, and his way of connecting you to his life trials–MBAR does the same.
For some reason, this album is really hard to put into exact words. It feels really new, or at least the approach comes from somewhere else. The album comes across really dirty in a certain sense; there is a certain sound developed in this man’s songwriting that makes you go into the the darkness with him. Each turn the album takes allows you follow willingly, which you will.
With lines like “Fuck you, I just wanted to die,” I worry about MBAR, even if he is writing from an omniscient perspective. This man has some demons, but music fans know that this often creates some of the more powerful tunes. Hopefully he has his act cleaned up, and we can look forward to more great releases from him in the future.
Check out a new song called “Buriedfed” by Miles right here:
[audio:https://austintownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/buriedfed.mp3]
Download: Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson – Buriedfed [MP3]
If you’re like me and can’t really justify spending all that money to fly out to Chicago this weekend, you can catch most of Lollapalooza live on the Lollapalooza website. A lot of the mid-range acts from the festival will also be seen at our little ACL festival later in September. Maybe that will make your schedule planning a bit easier? I suggest tuning in first thing tomorrow at 12:15 for the Holy F*ck set. C3 also somehow landed Radiohead AND Rage Against the Machine as headliners but couldn’t get either for ACL. I suggest checking those two out. See the schedule for the event on the festival website. You can also download an mp3 from each artist playing this weekend on a Lollapalooza mix created on Stereogum.
