Search - Rilo Kiley :: More Adventurous

Good Timing

Allan Suchinsky | Kensington, MD United States | 02/04/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When I enter a record shop, I'm usually looking for jazz, often for specific items. But while in a store in LA, list in hand, I got totally sidetracked. I wasn't sure what I was hearing. It certainly wasn't jazz. Nevertheless, I loved it and grabbed a copy of More Adventurous before anything else.



This group has such a unique, compelling sound, and such fine material, that I find myself playing the CD over and over again. It's certainly not the least attributable to Jenny Lewis, especially with what she does with "I Never." The piece totally blows me away.



Jazz lovers beware."

Simply Amazing

JJF | Baltimore, MD | 10/15/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Rilo Kiley was a band I stumbled upon by pure accident, and I'm sure glad I did. I was a fan of the Postal Service CD, and I knew Jenny Lewis sang some background vocals on it, so I decided to check out her band. I discovered I like Rilo Kiley more than the Postal Service or Death Cab For Cutie.



The songs are incredibly good. I completely disagree with anyone that says this is a spotty album. This album is one I put on and love almost everything. I might skip over two songs, Accidntl Deth and Love and War, the two songs that are kind of uncharacteristic of the band, but who can blame them for experimenting when everything else is just filled with great songwriting. The rest are great musically, lyrically and vocally. It is slightly more produced and has a few more pop songs than Rilo Kiley's previous two albums, but I like it just as well. The pop songs happen to be great pop songs, and on new territory like "I Never," Jenny sounds like the new Linda Ronstadt, and that's a good thing. I play this album for people all the time, and people always like it.



This really is genre-defying music. I think people go a bit overboard with talking about the country sound. There is a rootsy feel to a lot of the songs, but there's also a lot of folk and an indie rock feel. The lack of an easy niche for this band is the only thing I can think of that could be stopping them from being huge. I for one hope that they continue to do things their own way.



Blake Sennett plays great stuff on his guitar, and is a great compliment to Jenny Lewis, who is an amazing frontwoman. I read an article where Jenny and Blake were likened to being the Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham of the modern age. Well, the music is quite a bit different, but after spending the last six months emmersed in Rilo Kiley's three albums, I agree that Blake and Jenny are something special.



"

Worthwhile, but not as great as Execution of All Things

N. Parrish | Austin, TX | 10/31/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Overall, I'm happy with this album. I don't enjoy it as much as The Execution of All Things, but it has secured it's place in my car's elite wallet of CD's that I listen to regularly. I'm a big fan of the band's *sound* in this album - not necessarily the direction they went with the songwriting, but the overall production, guitar sounds, Jenny's voice, drums, I think it all sounds great. It makes me wish they would go back and rerecord Execution of All Things with the full sounding guitar sounds heard on "Portions For Foxes" replacing the thinner sounding parts in songs like "Spectacular Views". More Adventurous is definitely more polished.

The songs are good on More Adventurous... but they where, in my opinion, more consistently awesome on Execution of All Things. Some of the songs have lyrics that just kinda left me numb, not really feeling anything in any direction about the song. I'm not a big fan of this album's first track at all - I just don't like it when bands get all political or whatever - you're musicians, not politicians, and there's a reason for that. I think that the title track, Portions for Foxes, and Does He Love You? are some of the highlights of the album.

So my thoughts - if you love Rilo Kiley, get the album. If you've never listened to Rilo Kiley, get The Execution of All Things."