Ariel Pink

Ariel Pink's latest album Before Today has been getting great reviews which is completely confusing to me because his previous work pretty much got overlooked. Pitchfork.com gave Before Today a 9.0 rating while giving his far better 2004 album The Doldrums a 5.0 rating.

And that's the trouble with The Doldrums, and the reasoning behind this conflicted rating. The album is not so much Ariel Pink's creation as it is Ariel Pink himself, a real-time observation of his brain synapses at work. His nerves are either firing at Einstein levels or misfiring like harlequin babies, and in fairness, I'm hardly the staff brain surgeon.

-Nick Sylvester, October 25, 2004

This isn't a knock against Ariel Pink so much as it is a knock against critics who find his latest album more appealing. Before Today is The Doldrums lite. I'm happy for Ariel Pink in that critics are finally giving him his due, but if you fell in love with The Doldrums first, I can't imagine that you are blown away by this album because I'm not. Anyone who thinks this new album is his best, I must challenge you to a duel.