First things first, I like the noise-drone outfit Psychic Ills. I particularly enjoyed their fuzz-filled Early Violence compilation from three years ago and also 2005’s Dins, which includes the epic “January Rain.” I was not as moved by their new album, Mirror Eye, but perhaps I should rethink speaking so negatively about a band unafraid of cutting their detracters off at the knees.

On Friday, The Stranger writer Dave Segal took issue with Pitchfork writer Joe Colly’s 1.4 rating of Mirror Eye, and now he points out that the band has followed suit with a beatdown of the Pitchfork review in question:

From all we gather Colly’s transparent interest in and knowledge of music seems limited to recent trend fucking, and while that doesn’t shock, the fact that he gets so bent out of shape about music that he’s not into is interesting at the very least. Definitely not a fan of “abstract tendencies” or “eschewing traditional means of songcraft” Colly seems content in not having a mind of his own.

50 Cent should hire these guys to ghostwrite some future “Officer Ricky” disses! As an admitted “trend fucker” myself (any music journalist has to at least get to second base with trends if they want to get work), I think doing the deed is best with the lubricant of mischief and humor, and the Ills are doing an admirable job turning negative press into something amusing. This is far from the first time that an artist has responded directly to a vicious Pitchfork stab. Alas, Paper Thin Walls melted, so I can’t post a link to Oxbow’s review of various reviews of their 2007 album, The Narcotic Story. This commentary will have to suffice.

To be fair to Joe Colly, he might have been assigned a review that he didn’t want to write. As he goes through describing an album that “never enchants its listener and never intoxicates,” I thought it could better be better said in fewer words by someone who had higher expectations in the first place. While the Ills are at it, though, they should dish an equal amount of criticism upon the editors who allowed the piece to go through as is. But wait a sec, aren’t the Ills getting “bent out of shape” over a writer’s opinion that they arguably shouldn’t care about either?

Postscript: The Psychic Ills will mine a 1.4 for more exposure than a 6.3 could have gotten them. There will be a lot of “it isn’t that bad” comments to come. (I’ll say that “Sub Synth” is not nearly as off-putting as “two aggravating minutes of hearing your dad’s power tools in the garage through the walls of your living room.”) If Colly has thick enough skin, he will actually thank Psychic Ills for lighting up traffic at his blog, which I will be checking for a rebuttal.