Like you say the internet is an open forum and inevitably that’ll involve a variety of opinions.

http://www.emusic.com/samples/m3u/song/11095613/15879633.m3u

Good points and succinctly made. I have mixed feelings about filling in too much of the “what you are about” stuff. Ideally the music should speak for itself. Unfortunately these kinds of reviews tend to drastically color that possibility. Also, there’s the grave risk of sounding like a professional athlete after the game, tossing off cliches to try and explain why and how we do what we do.

It so happens that while there are other tracks where I would gladly suggest Wire or Wipers as references, maybe even The Pretty Things or The Flamin’ Groovies, this song has none of that to offer. I just recall Rick bringing the main riff and working on it for a considerable amount of time until it felt right. There was no, “can we make the bass line more Silver Apples-y?”

As I tried to make clear, though it was probably muddled in the skins of what seemed like sour grapes, it’s not being criticized that bothers me, it’s the inaccuracy of the criticism. It’s fine if you’re gonna knock something, but do it right. When Charles Isherwood pans a play in the NY Times, it is extremely satisfying to know exactly why — and he can do it in one sentence. I don’t think it’s unfair to expect people who write about the arts professionally to bring some insight to the table.

Regarding reviewing the reviews, I hear you, but I really love the fact that the internet offers an open forum. Nobody gets the last word on anything and, while they’re not always the most thoughtful exchanges, it offers the opportunity to be, and I find that dialog exciting.

Cheers,
-Sohrab Habibion.

Ouch. Why didn’t you take the opportunity to say what you are about if the review missed the mark so much?

If you’d rather people just checked out your music and found out themselves, don’t review the reviews.

While it is somewhat disappointing to be chosen as an example of the “few misses” on the latest eMusic collection, it is less so for the actual criticism, which i ordinarily appreciate, than the fact your description of us is glaringly off the mark.

To write “… coming on like a sexy-voiced Stones fan hell-bent on a sloppy garage makeover … but … lack[ing] the requisite swagger” could not be more remote from what our band is about.

While there is no arguing that we all like the Stones in varying degrees and are occasionally sloppy in our musicianship, this particular shorthand, which i understand the need for and begrudgingly have come to accept from your profession, is just dead wrong.

If you don’t care for the song, that’s fine, but if you insist on putting it into a musical context, please at least make the effort to get it right. Moreover, to presume you have any insight into our intentions is absurd at best. For the record, swagger is not part of our musical lexicon and we are not hell-bent on anything in particular, let alone cut rate classic rock makeovers.

However, if you are going to make reference to the Stones and garage rock, please do your readers the service of distinguishing whether you mean ‘Between The Buttons’ or ‘Bridges To Babylon’ and The Sonics or The Cynics, as they paint completely different portraits.

All that said, if “Light Sweet Crude” does indeed “pique listeners’ curiosity” for hearing more of our music, I hope their ears, as well as yours, are willing to listen to the songs for what they are and not for what somebody else rightly or wrongly purports them to be.

Dissected rejected,
-Sohrab Habibion/Obits.