Review
The Dismemberment Plan
A People's History of...

First off, the Dismemberment Plan gets props just for the fact that this record came out. Consistently innovative while they were active, the band is being just as interesting, if not more so, posthumously, by posting all their songs on their website and having fans download them and remix them. As far as the remixes here go, they either fall flat or transcend the original source material and in some cases out-do the songs as they first appeared. Things, unfortunately, start out on entirely the wrong foot, with a lumbering, disjointed remix of "The Face of the Earth" by someone who admits he'd never heard the band before the remix. Thankfully, the second track is a remix of "What Do You Want Me to Say?" that reorganizes things and strips the chorus down to the secondary vocal hooks. After Cex's by-the-numbers IDM rendition of "Academy Award," things kick into high gear with a quartet of excellent remixes, with a strange rendition of "Following Through" that changes the emphasis of different syllables in the verses, "The Other Side" providing the vocal only on an entirely new jazz/rock hybrid song, a slinky low-key mix of "A Life of Possibilities" by the Japanese band Quruli, and a version of "Pay For the Piano" that synchs up with Elvis Costello. Towards the end, things pick up again, with a trio of great numbers ending the record. Ev from 12 Rods remixes "The City" in astoundingly symphonic fashion with a lonely trumpet line fading through the gloom, followed by a suitably jittery version of "The Jitters" that seems to capture nervous tension perfectly, and the Face's "Ooh La La" providing the backing music for a remix of "Superpowers." Granted, there are a few duds to be found, but that's to be expected with a project like this. "Time Bomb" is a wreck, and no amount of remixing can cure "Automatic" from being the most boring track the Plan ever laid to tape. Still, the surprising amount of strong cuts speaks well for the future of the project, which will hopefully see a Volume 2 at some point in the future.