The elicited emotional responses are pretty limited when it comes to post-hardcore. It seems to be (de)constructed in such a way as to leave you with one solitary, alienating mood: one that could lose you friends if you took it to its logical conclusion. For better or worse, that was the music of[a]Bob Tilton[/a]. They’ve made a mini-career out of the splashing of abstruse personal poetry across nervous rhythms; thus, to all intents, ‘The Leading Hotels Of The World’ is classic maudlin anti-pop for misfits.
Nothing wrong so far, then. Needless to say, many an unassuming older statesperson of punk rock has prospered from the way of the wayward guitar stroll. And there’s no denying the oft-cited DC-style parallels here, especially when the scattershot ‘Nashville’ or brooding complexities of ‘He Was A Lamb’ loom into view – all plaintive whine and sideways assault.
But, alas, ‘The Leading Hotels…’ is the Bob‘s farewell record so it is, perhaps, very fitting that they have chosen to bow out with quiet, at times, almost silent dignity and grace: the same way they have conducted themselves throughout. Not thrashing and flailing like a brattish self-absorbed parvenu, but noodling their way shyly into retirement.
Kinda sad, but you suspect that’s just how they planned it.