"Red and Purple" (The Dodos)

I tend to take Pitchfork reviews with a grain of salt.  No—more like a hypertension-inducing shaker of salt.  The site is so bitchy and fickle.  The same reviewer might refer to a band's debut release as "nothing short of genius: 9.8 points," but then turn right around and completely pan that same group's sophomore album for some odd infraction, like "...the guitar effects on track #4 made my cat hide under the sofa; this band is dead to me: 0 points."
Admittedly, though, I've been turned on to a lot of bands via Pitchfork and discovered music that I might not have found elsewhere.  Case in point: The Dodos, an indie folk-rock duo out of San Francisco, which consists of vocalist/guitarist Meric Long and percussionist Logan Kroeber.  Back in 2008, I came across a really glowing review of the band's full-length release Visiter.  The gist was: the album was like a mix of Animal Collective (minus the hallucinogens) and Magnetic Fields (plus caffeine) with the addition of a kick-ass, one-man rhythm section.  Obviously, I was intrigued.
The praise turned out to be well deserved; Visiter is inventive from start to finish with melodies that twist, turn, and bend in prickly, punky ways.  Case in point: the track "Red and Purple."  At its heart, it's a poppy ballad about love and war with lush vocals, sparkly acoustic guitar, and droplets of both grand and toy piano.  Yet it tromps along on this unstoppable trajectory of percussion like a crazed marching band that’s out for blood.  It's an unexpected mix of sunshine and thunder that works amazingly well.
My favorite moment comes after the second chorus, when this gnarled, distorted riff suddenly comes out of nowhere and grunts its way through the brief instrumental break.  It's a nice bit of grit that makes me think Long and Kroeber listened to Machine Gun Etiquette as much as they listened to Rhythm of the Saints growing up.  And, on both counts, I wholeheartedly approve.