Paper Television
K, 2006
rating: 1.5/5
reviewer: jspicer

The first time my ears heard "Come on Petunia" from Poor Aim, I quickly fell in love with The Blow's quirky brand of pop. The clever doo-wop sampling of The Police classic "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" is something P. Diddy or Kanye would be jealous of. Something that clever just doesn't come along too often. So I hunted down Poor Aim and absorbed every ounce of pop brilliance until I was blue in the face. However, your eyes (and ears) don't deceive you — Paper Television is a messy disappointment on every level.

Gone is the quirk, replaced by paint-by numbers beats and the most unoriginal take on electronic pop imaginable. I understand that an album's worth of imaginative pop is hard to follow, but Khaela Maricich has done it before. Having three distinct yet equal albums to pull from, Paper Television should have been a no-brainer of an album to make. Instead, it has no brains and no heart. Maricich is desperately hoping to coax us onto the dance floor with the right combinations of beats and sounds, but without her heart and without her genius pushing the music to new heights, the soulless pop electronica bores a hole in your temple. Without the cuteness and the ingenuity, Paper Television is nothing more than a generic product being peddled to the hapless masses. Maricich has turned her quaint mom-and-pop operation into an ugly conglomerate. The more I fought to find what I was looking for, the more I became lost in the maze of readymade aisles of canned sound. Now, there's just a massive mess in aisle 3, and Maricich is left to clean it up.

1. Pile of Gold
2. Parentheses
3. The Big U
4. The Long List of Girls
5. Bonjour Juene Fille
6. Babay (Eat a Critter, Fell its Wrath)
7. Eat Your Heart Up
8. Pardon Me
9. Fists Up
10. True Affection

Poor Aim: Love Songs
States Rights/Slender Means Society, 2004
rating: 5/5
reviewer: cockle


States Rights Records and The Slender Means Society have conjured up The Pregnancy Series, of which, The Blow's release, Poor Aim: Love Songs, is the first born to the family. A conceptual series of four EP releases -- each from separate artists, including Thanksgiving, Lucky Dragons, and Mount Eerie -- the underlying theme is still rather elusive but is described on the press sheet as "A concise concept EP that means something different than anything they've done before." As per the concept of Poor Aim: Love Songs, the title says it all.

For Khaela Maricich, this is a step beyond any previous Blow or Get the Hell Out of the Way of the Volcano work to date. The consistency of this album is at first fairly overwhelming. Those familiar with The Blow's catalog, whether a fan or not, will have to agree that this album has, as those foul mouthed teens like to say, "got it's shit together." The difference between Maricich's previous release The Concussive Caress and Poor Aim, while not so shocking, is quite a marked contrast. Poor Aim consistently brings together more unified songs in lieu of including those frenzied interstitials, which are a stalwart characteristic of The Blow's previous releases.

While it may seem most obvious to assume that Bechtolt's production would bring complexity to this EP (what with 2004's Super Warren MMIV), it is Maricich's vocals which provide the depth, range, and individuality of an independent release. Bechtolt has engineered distinguishable, seamless beats and backgrounds that are immediately palatable to even the most naïve of pop fanatics. What these two have managed with Poor Aim is to take two seemingly abstract musicians and create one of the most accessible releases of the year.

1. Hey Boy
2. The Sky Opened Wide Like the Tide
3. Knowing the Things That I Know
4. Lets Play Boys Chase Girls
5. The Love That I Crave
6. Hock IT
7. Come On Petunia