Vice Magazine goes against the grain in its new "food issue." In the album review pages, Vice writers rip the new Liars album Dream's Not Dead and gives it a big fat goose egg, then gives a maximum ten rating to the music media's current whipping boys, the Arctic Monkeys.

But it's not just the contrarian points of view that makes these reviews worth repeating -- they're also really funny. The Liars' Drum's Not Dead has been getting some rave reviews around the media and blogosphere. (It has a 7.2 Metacritic score -- which would be higher if not for the 1.0 given by Filter -- and a whopping 9.7 user rating.) Of the album Artie Filie wrote:

"The overblown bullshit balloon that is Liars has finally begun to deflate, and recorded here for your enjoyment, may I present the gentle farting sound of its demise. And what a pathetic eulogy the band has written for itself: A sad attempt at a concept album complete with fictional characters named Drum and Mount Heart Attack (not kidding) that apparently speak to each other in tuneless droning and clumsy ambient noise. In short: With no more Entertainment! to scrape from the barrel, Liars are now aping the Residents. Poorly. Well, you had a good run, guys. Now please take the rest of your lives off."

The Arctic Monkeys' Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not has been well received (an 8.2 at Metacritic and a 7.0 user rating) but in recent weeks the backlash has taken hold in the media. Mort Sneed isn't hopping on that bandwagon:

"It’s big news that these guys sold 120,000 albums within 24 hours of its release, making them the fastest-selling debut in Britain ever. And the thing is… it’s like, a really good album. Why does this make me feel profoundly uncomfortable? Like maybe I should read "The Da Vinci Code" after all?

Good ol' Vice. Always going against the grain, and making music criticism bearable if only for a few seconds.

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