Entertainment
I Am Gemini
I Am Gemini
Cursive
Saddle Creek
Concept albums are difficult to pull off, as evidenced by post-hardcore outfit Cursive’s latest, I Am Gemini. A great deal of work can go into even the most hackneyed of concepts. The trio’s good twin/evil twin separated at birth feels labored over, if unfinished and unrealized. It doesn’t have the assured storytelling of The Dear Hunter’s Act series, the fable-like quality of the Decemberists’s The Hazards of Love
I Am Gemini
Cursive
Saddle Creek
Concept albums are difficult to pull off, as evidenced by post-hardcore outfit Cursive’s latest, I Am Gemini. A great deal of work can go into even the most hackneyed of concepts. The trio’s good twin/evil twin separated at birth feels labored over, if unfinished and unrealized. It doesn’t have the assured storytelling of The Dear Hunter’s Act series, the fable-like quality of the Decemberists’s The Hazards of Love, nor the impressionistic beauty of Sufjan Stevens’s Illinoise. The album, as a whole, never quite feels cohesive. Nor can its separate parts stand alone. “This House Alive,” the album’s opener, is mis-paced, starting and stopping in a way that makes the track feel like a practice take. Even the album’s best songs are problematic. “The Sun and Moon” has a good groove and an appealingly deliberate drum beat, but Cursive snuffs this brief musical candle by dropping into an ineffective breakdown. An album that is the result of people putting too much work into a bad idea.
