All the Miserable Times is a husband and wife duo that has a quirky and appealing penchant for simplistic, downbeat, and charming songs. Their wry pieces become observations on the commercialization of beauty as in "Whore (Whore)" (the vocalist is a former Miss Memphis) or on the ephemeral nature of love, as in "Sailor." Through such content and the mix of basic, acoustic guitar and odd samples, the approach sometimes comes near to that of
Kramer and
Ann Magnuson's
Bongwater (e.g., "Rudy"). While there is plenty of cynical humor here, some pieces, like the sad longing of "Dear Bird," stand alone as personal and moving accounts. Such is nearly the same with another nature-lover's piece, "June Bug." Combined with a background of analogue hiss and backyard environmental sounds, this ode to a bug shares with "Dear Bird" an outsider's longing for the freedom enjoyed by nature's more humble constituents. The hopeless love expressed in "Glamorous" suggests their own past scars that have caused vocalist Miss Terri to be able to so poignantly express this yearning to get away, far away. While I Love You Loudly purposefully offers no flashy musicianship, it does offer itself as a stylized if not surreal vision of a woman with a lot of problems and a lot of visions putting it all together in a weird coffeeshop setting. ~ Tom Schulte, All Music Guide
