Search - Bonobo :: Animal Magic

Not as good as Dial M for Monkey

Scott Williams | Oakland, CA United States | 04/27/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is a good electronica CD. There are catchy tunes through out which are immediately accessible. What prevents this CD from being an electronica classic, and makes it lower quality that Dial M for Monkey (Also by Bonobo), are two things:



1. There is not enough depth on the tracks. Each track has a few different parts, and just a few layers of instrumentation. In comparison, Dial M for Monkey, is much deeper. There are many more layered parts within each track, and each song has more parts to it. Long story short there is more complexity to Dial M for Monkey. This added complexity makes Dial M grow more interesting with each listen, while Animal Magic gets old after many listens.



2. Animal Magic features some "spoken word" vocals. Basically some guy who sounds like a TV ad from the 1950s repeats cheesy spoken sentances in some of the songs (fortunately there is not too much of this). This is totally hacky and I can't believe someone would still use this technique. This was cliche in the early 90s. Why do I want to hear some nerdy voice say "each time you hear this record you will relax even deeper".



Overall all this is a good CD though. I do enjoy listening to it, and every Bonobo fan should pick this up as they will like it. If you can get only one Bonobo CD, however, get Dial M for Monkey."