Send "The Russian Futurists " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Over the course of three albums, the Russian Futurists' Matthew Adam Hart established a specific and successful indie pop template. Virtually every song wedded woozy or bouncy maximalist synth lines to bashy, blown-out drumbeats. Within this bargain-store pomp, Hart would paradoxically bury his most painstaking and precise creations, his lyrics, which were filled with enough complex and internal rhymes to make Cole Porter proud.You'd be forgiven for wishing that Hart would at least slightly broaden his scope, but then again his albums each take up little more than 30 minutes-- long enough to enjoy his distinctive approach without growing sick of its rigidity. Perhaps he also thought a nice long break between Russian Futurists full-lengths would engender goodwill as well, and so after five years without a proper studio effort, Hart returns with The Weight's on the Wheels. And... not a whole lot has changed. It's hard to fault Hart, as Wheels is another thoroughly pleasurable album that proves his skills as a popsmith haven't rusted. Though it doesn't affect the quality of the songs, there is one major difference between this Russian Futurists record and preceding releases: Hart has deigned to push his vocals much further up in the mix this time around, so you don't need a lyric sheet to make out his cleverly knotty, densely alliterative rhymes. As always, the dominant subject is romantic struggle and dissatisfaction, and Hart maintains his tendency to prize sound over sense in a way that might be irritating if he weren't so damn good at it. "Let's serve this nervousness on a plate/ Let's curb our words for impervious debates," goes an entirely representative couplet. That's not to say Hart can't be relatably affecting-- "Golden Years" finds him musing, "Drank my way through my twenties... Slept my way through my thirties," while "To Be Honest" hinges on the slippery, shifting meanings of the refrain, "I don't even know what it's like/ To be honest."...full text |
| Slantmagazine |
| Matthew Adam Hart (a.k.a. the Russian Futurists) first caught my attention with his playful remix of Stars's "First Five Times," a catchy tune from their excellent Set Yourself on Fire. One of the cool things about the edit was the way that Hart made the song both meaner and cuter, embellishing it with fuzzy synth tones and muscular guitar riffs, which, given the original song's ambivalent recounting of a love affair built on a foundation of drunken hookups, was pretty fitting. There's no similar contest between cynicism and sentimentality on The Weight's on the Wheels: It's a candygram from the heart of a giddy, geeky romantic who has somehow had his rose-tinted frames surgically grafted to his face. Some of the songs have jokey titles that in no way relate to their lyrics ("Register My Firearms? No Way!"). Others have jokey titles that are unfortunately more reflective of their contents: "100 Shopping Days 'Til Christmas," with its generic breakbeats and goofy sing-song lyrics is eerily reminiscent of Kathie Lee Gifford's infamous "Hip Hop Christmas" special. Which reminds me that I had considered starting the review with something to the extent of "Oh God, the lyrics, the utterly dreadful lyrics!" Pick a line at random from the album and I can pretty well guarantee you'll end up with a groaner to the tune of: "She's spinning plates/I hate to burst her bubble/But she's got eyes that make the Great Lakes puddles," "We're made for each other, baby let's be lovers/Spend the rest of the night under the covers," "My handwriting is getting much worse/I can't remember last night, is that a blessing, a curse?" The most annoying thing about these lyrics is (a) the fixation on smarmy kid's book couplets, (b) that Hart gives every one of them the same nasal, ascending read, (c) that half the lines are clichés anyway, (d) that the other half don't make a ton of sense, (e) that you could do consistently better by using a Shel Silverstein book as a Ouija board and singing whatever came out? I can't decide. One thing that's easy to decide is that "One Night, One Kiss," a duet with Ruth Minnikin of the Heavy Blinkers, handily wins the cringeworthy sweepstakes. It's an AABBCC onslaught, with each couplet split between the two singers, who take turns cooing clunkers and come off like the kind of hopeless high school saps who proofread each others' homework as foreplay and don't understand why it's tacky for couples to wear matching clothes....full text |
| Cavacool |
| For long-suffering fans of the Russian Futurists, the five-year wait for new material is finally over. But while there’s lots to like about The Weight’s on the Wheels, this new album feels more like an update or expansion of Matthew Adam Hart’s signature synth-pop sound than it does the great leap forward some had hoped for. Much has been made of Hart’s predilection for tinkering and experimentation, but it turns out the brightest moments here come from songs that would not have sounded out of place on his previous releases. Emerging with a swagger from the lo-fi bedroom sound that characterized earlier Russian Futurists efforts, Hart’s sound certainly benefits from the more polished production that’s gone into The Weight’s on the Wheels, and the result is an innovative and exuberant – if uneven – album. Unfortunately, some of the direct appeals to more eclectic musical influences – in particular the stylistic borrowing from early hip-hop and R&B – go over with all the subtlety of the era’s classic “colourful vest over a puffy white shirt” combination. And they fit about as well, too. For example, with apologies to the four or so people on the planet yearning for a new jack swing renaissance (and especially to any of those four who had envisioned a bearded ginger electro-pop wizard as just the man to lead it), the disposable ’100 Shopping Days ‘Til Christmas’ provides the low point on the album. It would on its own, like most stocking stuffers, be perfectly innocuous; but it’s the fact that the song breaks up a brilliantly energetic run of momentum that makes its inclusion here in the album so unfortunate. Thankfully, there’s still plenty here worth listening to at all times of the year. The album’s opener, ‘Hoeing Weeds Sowing Seeds’, is an instant gem that should remind fans of the Russian Futurists at its best: colourful lyrics bounce playfully off driving synth-beats, culminating in whatever is the bedroom-pop equivalent of an anthemic stadium-rock chorus – probably the sort of thing you wouldn’t mind your roommates hearing you sing in the shower. Other standout tracks on the album, such as ‘Register My Firearms? No Way!’ and ‘Tripping Horses’, also showcase Hart’s ability to mix crisp, clever lyrics into swirling, textured pop classics....full text |
The Russian Futurists lyrics
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