Dear Toulouse,

This may be the hardest letter I'll ever have to write. Getting to know you these past couple of days has been wonderful, but I've come to the painful realization that I can never truly love you. Therefore, I must leave. But before I go, I think you deserve some sort of explanation. I will speak from my heart and only hope it doesn't pain you too much to read it.

Things started magnificently. Your liner notes are the most entertaining I've seen since I bought The Nation of Ulysses Plays Pretty for Baby a couple of years ago. It seemed I could spend hours perusing them and they would always bring a smile to my face and a thoughtful hand to my chin. Also, anything named for a city in southern France that was founded 1,300 years ago by displaced Ostrogoths has the potential to be very cool. And there's also the suggestion of figures like painter/lithographer Toulouse-Lautrec. The promise of art-school punk or weird, abstract ambient music welled in my mind.

And you delivered. Well, kind of. Unfortunately, the Parker Brothers' Ouija board you used to channel the Gang of Four seems to have come from the factory with some slight defects. Your muscular rhythm section of bassist Aden Kumler and drummer Sarah Rentz could make me into a dancin' fool any day. But while my ass screams yes, my brain cries no. Your funky locomotive simply doesn't offer much support. I'm just as full of white-collar angst as you are, but for some reason, I have a hard time caring when you talk.

"Commuter Maquette"'s refrain of "you laugh so much you make me sick" could be arresting with a convincing delivery. But unfortunately, the whole of New Points New Lines suffers from an utter lack of charisma. I love what you're trying to do, but you need a front person. The male/female vocal interplay of "Every Office Every Day" is completely overshadowed by Jamison Duffield's funkadelic guitar workout. The vaguely agitated lyrics about office work and the deadpan delivery remind me all too much of Sonic Youth making a song because they're bored, or the 90 Day Men with fewer polyrhythms. Neither of those things can come to any good.

Additionally, in "Distractions for Money," you assert that "as prices go up, expectations go down." Though intriguing, I'm afraid that this simply doesn't add up to sound economic theory. And again, the vocals are just not up to snuff. The guitar/bass/drums rhythmic assault of "Green Light District" is impressive, but Christopher Moisan's careening keyboards are forced to compete with Rentz meaninglessly shouting, "North, south, east, west!" like a particularly zealous high school cheerleader. I keep expecting her to follow it with, "Who's the team that we love best?"

Rentz's lead vocal on "Schematic for New Situations," one of the album's best tracks, is much better, and the band once again gels into a congealed ball of sticky rhythm. Too many false stops in the mid-section distract, though. I don't know how you do it, Toulouse, but "Into L'Avventura" actually manages to be funky, breezy, and, to a lesser extent, agitated all at the same time. I'm not sure which of the gentlemen in the band is taking the lead here (all four members sing), but he seems to be the grittiest.

"The Rhetoric of Romance" is the best post-punk workout on the album, trumping its nine counterparts by harnessing your strengths and downplaying the attempted agitation in the vocals. The noisy open hi-hats and reggaephiliac bass of the closing "Dancehall Culture" also offers a hint of what you could become if you just remembered that you don't have Jon King, H.R. from Bad Brains, or Nick Cave in your band. Maybe you should try some instrumentals in the future. It certainly couldn't hurt-- your strong suit is definitely your tight funkiness.

So that's why I'm leaving you. You have a lot of potential, but you're just not the band for me right now. With some better, punchier production and a bit more of a handle on your capabilities, I have no doubt that you'll be making good, and not simply competent, music in no time at all. I regret that I can't be there to see that happen, but I have to move on. There are other albums that need me, other realms of music to set my loins afire! And with that I bid you adieu. Stay strong, and perhaps our paths will cross again some day.

Goodbye,
-Joe Tangari

P.S. I want my copy of Entertainment! back. Just slide it under the door.