Picastro
Become Secret
Release Date: Feb 23, 2010
Genre(s): Rock, Alternative
Record label: Monotreme
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Album Review: Become Secret by Picastro
Great, Based on 5 Critics
Based on rating 9/10
Some artists get a little slack as time passes, losing whatever fierceness made them compelling in the first place. That intensity isn’t the only way to make good art, but it is one of the main ones, and it can be hard to keep up. Not because people love selling out, but because time passes and whatever’s driving you dies down a little, or you get bored, or you get complacent.
Based on rating 8/10
Picastro's fourth album finds Liz Hysen and her bandmates again tackling preconceptions of what a rock band is supposed to be -- calling Become Secret a chamber pop album isn't really accurate, but it's hard to hear it as anything but an exploration in the tension between Hysen's compelling vocals and the varied instrumentation throughout. The slocore tag Picastro received early on in some corners has a vague relevance, but on a song like "Pig & Sucker," the sense of compelling, unsettled strangeness is much greater than most bands could pull off. Even with a straightforward-enough lyric and performance, the quality of Hysen's singing and the tactile feeling of the guitar suggest the unearthly feeling of Charalambides far more than a confessional rock song.
Based on rating 3.5/5
We’ve got the apocalypse all wrong. There’ll be no devastation or nomadic hordes of men gnawing babies’ toes. Instead humanity will peter out with a whimper. In the final days, small pockets will remain, and their final laments of our history will sound something like [b]Picastro[/b ….
Based on rating 7/10
Picastro hails from the great land of Canada; Home of maple syrup, Moosehead Beer, curling and one of the greatest indie music scenes on Earth. From Broken Social Scene to Arcade Fire, Canada has spawned some of the most memorable Indie acts of our time. Picastro simply continues this impressive legacy. Toronto native, Liz Hysen is the heart and soul of Picastro.
Based on rating 3/5
Toronto frontwoman/songwriter Liz Hysen is a genius at creating unsettling dissonance with her avant-garde pop. Her band, Picastro, has been labelled "sleep rock," but it's not the kind of music most of us would want to listen to before bed-time, likely as it is to induce nightmares. [rssbreak] The Bible, westerns and Cormac McCarthy's books are said to have influenced Become Secret, their fourth album.