Did anybody hear the new Tortoise album? Is it any good? I've read several reviews and all of them talk about "disappointment". I'm mainly interested in knowing whether the album is any close to "Standards" or more in the "TNT"/"Millions..."-vein. I didn't like the direction they took with "Standards" at all.

"It's all around you" is incredibly uninteresting. They've dropped everything that made them interesting - the synth stuff, the electro-acoustic experimentation, the interesting digital editing and looping - and are left sounding like any other boring "post-rock" band with crashing drums, faux-morricone guitar leads, and the ubiquitous vibraphone clunks. If anything, it's more like their first record or that boring Mogwai/Explosions in the Sky stuff. andrew