The universe of fiction is filled with sprawling, prodigious, excessive achievements. Gravity's Rainbow , like, or Ulysses . Or consider those few months a while back when David Foster Wallace was suddenly and inexplicably as cool as Take That and even more of a hottie than Robbie Williams. Within weeks, thousands of copies begin gathering dust on IKEA bookcases nationwide. It's not that a lot of these books don't deserve the attention.
Rock music has similar problems with sprawl.
Modest Mouse's The Lonesome Crowded West , despite its status as a borderline indie classic, isn't unlike choking down 50 pages of William T. Vollman when taken in one sitting. And who's to say whether or not the excess of OK Computer won't feel tarnished and empty in a couple decades. These things are difficult to predict, and more often than not, the things which remain rewarding year after year are the quietest and most unassuming releases. But Longer is an antidote to the sprawl of modern rock. Some have called it alt-country, but to my ears, the Czars play traditional country the same way the Birthday Party played aboriginal Australian music.