Search - Askeleton :: The Personalization [Vinyl]

Knol Tate, who began Askeleton after the dissolution of his bands Kill Sadie and The Hidden Chord back in 2002, has long come off like he s holding you at a distance. Tate started the trend first with the lo-fi, sample-based bedroom pop of Sad Album and then with the cold, industrial isolation of Angry Album or- Psychic Songs, but showed a more inclusive tendency with 2005 s (Happy) Album. And now comes The Personalization, which is almost, well, sunny. Done with the trilogies, Askeleton have become simultaneously lighter and bigger than ever. Without being overly self-conscious, Tate has always made records with ideas behind them. If (Happy) Album was about bringing in all of his friends to contribute parts to his songs, The Personalization represents a return to the stripped-down, live band aesthetics of labels like Stiff Records. This all-in-the-family approach was whittled down to a core group of players for The Personalization. Bringing together musicians he s worked with for several years now, the band on the record is composed of guitarist/drummer Bill Caperton, bassist Noah Paster, multi-instrumentalist Robert Skoro (who also had a hand in producing the record), and drummer Steve Yasgar. These players musical experience imbues the record the first real band record Askeleton has made--with an organic consistency and warmth. On first glance, it may appear that Askeleton adopts different musical genres only to shed them just as fast, but in fact they ve been accumulating styles in bits and pieces. The Personalization is simultaneously the most fully realized and simplest Askeleton record yet.