Raised by Robots “The Auctioneer” (Doom Candy Music 2008)
Raised by Robots’s debut record, The Auctioneer was just released by Doom Candy Music. And it’s certainly an interesting listen. The record is heavily influenced by Dischord Records bands, especially Fugazi. It’s a collection of 12 songs that combine traditional indie rock, punk, and a few hefty shots of emo. It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like. That’s not a bad thing, but this record doesn’t have a whole lot of diversity.
That said, it’s probably a good idea to look into the band’s pathos a bit. Here’s a description of the band Raised by Robots, courtesy of their own website. It should give you a decent idea of what to think about these guys:
Why cry out to the damaged landscape any longer? It’s populated with the fey and callous, and returns only dull echoes of our honest intent. The psyche turns inward and muddled, and we stumble through the fallen light only to discover that we stumble…But then again, some proto-human impulse lingers in the center of our heads, by the brain stem. It’s a slack-jawed, single-willed drive to “rock the shackles from our hackles,” as it were. In this semi-somnolent state, we discern a hint of a reason to wake and stretch, like transcending freaks, to the blossoming, murderous sun.
Seems a bit lofty, no? It’s kind of amusing, though, especially considering that the album contains references to Hungry, Hungry Hippos as well as lines about “jump[ing] your bones.”
At any rate, then the band’s press release states the following about the release of The Auctioneer:
. . . spins around an axis of unpretentiousness, without swelling in the mediocrity that often accompanies that word.
That’s a little bit more on target. That duality, that is.
That’s not to say that Raised by Robots doesn’t have the right to want to be lofty. Being pretentious and then claiming not to be is a bit of a cornerstone of being a hipster and those who dream of being hipsters. Of course, many hipsters have recently begun to come to grips with their own pretentiousness, but that’s a different matter altogether.