In Advance of the Broken Arm (album)

Last updated

In Advance of the Broken Arm
Marnie Stern - In Advance of the Broken Arm.jpg
Studio album by
ReleasedFebruary 20, 2007
Genre
Label Kill Rock Stars
Producer Zach Hill
Marnie Stern chronology
In Advance of the Broken Arm
(2007)
This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That
(2008)
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic 79/100 [1]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svg [2]
Pitchfork 7.7/10 [3]
PopMatters 7/10 [4]
Stylus Magazine A− [5]

In Advance of the Broken Arm is the debut album by Marnie Stern, released in 2007. Kill Rock Stars handled the CD release, and the vinyl with a shorter track listing came out on Rampage Records. The title comes from a work of art of the same title by artist Marcel Duchamp.

Contents

Composition

Musically, Arm is math rock and "fully-formed, feminine" indie rock, [5] [6] as well as a "noisy" fusion of punk rock and avant-pop. [7]

Legacy

Arm has garnered admiration in the years since its release. As part of an essay series for Drowned in Sound 's 10th anniversary, contributing writer Alexander Tudor wrote glowingly of the album in 2010. He called it "sad & brave & emotionally generous" due to Stern "weav[ing]... her narrative of personal struggle against the odds, and her own mantras of self-affirmation" into it. [8] In 2017, MTV News' Hazel Cills celebrated Arm's 10th anniversary. She praised the musicianship of Stern and drummer Zach Hill as "sound[ing] like nothing else in American indie rock" at the time. [7] About.com placed Arm on their list of the math rock genre's best records. [6]

Track listing

CD

  1. "Vibrational Match" - 3:37
  2. "Grapefruit" - 2:47
  3. "Every Single Line Means Something" - 3:40
  4. "Precious Metal" - 3:10
  5. "Put All Your Eggs in One Basket and Then Watch That Basket!!!" - 2:41
  6. "Logical Volume" - 3:40
  7. "Absorb Those Numbers" - 3:21
  8. "This American Life" - 4:05
  9. "Letters from Rimbaud" - 3:39
  10. "The Weight of a Rock" - 2:30
  11. "Plato's Fucked Up Cave" - 3:30
  12. "Healer" - 3:29
  13. "Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling" - 4:24

LP

Side A

  1. "Vibrational Match" - 3:37
  2. "Grapefruit" - 2:47
  3. "Every Single Line Means Something" - 3:40
  4. "Precious Metal" - 3:10
  5. "Put All Your Eggs in One Basket and Then Watch That Basket!!!" - 2:41

Side B

  1. "Absorb Those Numbers" - 3:21
  2. "This American Life" - 4:05
  3. "Healer" - 3:29
  4. "Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling" - 4:24

Personnel

Performers

Other

References

  1. "In Advance Of The Broken Arm by Marnie Stern". Metacritic . Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  2. Jurek, Thom. "In Advance of the Broken Arm". AllMusic . Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  3. Stosuy, Brandon (February 23, 2007). "Marnie Stern: In Advance of the Broken Arm Album Review". Pitchfork . Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  4. Cibula, Matt (February 19, 2007). "Marnie Stern: In Advance of the Broken Arm". PopMatters . Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  5. 1 2 Powell, Mike (February 21, 2007). "Marnie Stern - In Advance of the Broken Arm - Review". Stylus Magazine . Archived from the original on February 23, 2007. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  6. 1 2 Carew, Anthony (August 22, 2019). "Top 10 Math-Rock Albums - Best Ever Math-Rock Albums". About.com . Retrieved July 25, 2025.
  7. 1 2 Cills, Hazel (February 21, 2017). "How Marnie Stern Found the Sound of the Future". MTV News . Archived from the original on February 8, 2022. Retrieved July 25, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  8. Tudor, Alexander (August 31, 2010). "Favourite 50: Marnie Stern In Advance of the Broken Arm (chosen by Alexander Tudor) / In Depth // Drowned In Sound". Drowned in Sound . Archived from the original on June 18, 2021. Retrieved August 3, 2025.