I've never listened to this album through headphones, and that was such a terrible mistake. It was such a coincidence, a happenstance occurrence, that my girlfriend is here on a Monday morning, taking up my desktop computer, so I'm on my laptop sitting on the bed. These laptop speakers suck, even with decent EQ (whoa! did you know shift+tab backs up in the tab order? cool) so I grabbed some earphones.

If you're playing the song, pause it, and put in some headphones. (If you're not, do step one.) I hope you've got decent ones. (If you're looking for sub-$50 headphones, I recommend these Sony fontopias. If you want better headphones, get a proper custom made headphone amp \[it'll be way cheaper than buying retail\] and some Sennheiser HD-595s.)

Now play it.

Stop reading and listen!

I guess it is said that this band is unique because they construct their songs on mixing software, but then they learn to play the songs live and record that. You can hear it, because the music definitely has that constructed loop-based feeling but everything feels organic and alive.

It's a shame, then, that other bands can't figure this out. Imagine how little Radiohead would suck right now if they would just play real instruments on their records? Or at least not try to make them sound like robotic computer generated bullshit. Not to get down on Radiohead randomly, but I remember when they made music, you know? Stuff that sounded organic and alive, full of beauty. Listening to Radiohead now is like walking through the Blade Runner set, awkward Vangelis synths hounding you, big black emotionless buildings towering over you, et al.

Menomena, by comparison, sound rich and lovely. Their music is probably no less weird (if not weirder), but when you listen closely you can hear all the attention to detail. You can hear breathing, fingers sliding across strings, they play with echos, and place sounds around your head in various ways. Their songs live. They might have been gestated within a computer but they have emerged screaming organic little shits that kick ass.