Ridiculously catchy indie rock, with the effortless tunefulness of The Magnetic Fields, the hyperlayered harmonies of The Beach Boys, and the low-key inventiveness of Josh Ritter and early Shins. Every song leads with a spot-on melodic backbone, and each has at least one twist, some swerve, some bridge, some shift that will excite and surprise.
Take closing track Nicaragua, which starts with a flinty, lilting vocal delivery over a spare, jangling guitar, slowly joined by romping bass, brushy drums, backing la-la's, leading into a double-strength second verse, and just when you think the whole thing's peaked, the bottom falls out. The guitar solo wheels in, then the bottom really drops out and you're floating on a single guitar line and the cavernous, terrifying bass drum kicks in, and the ending hypnotic drone-on comes and goes and shifts and sinks and by the end you've lost time, feeling like you've been through a 9-minute masterpiece but it all happened in half that, and with none of the effort that kind of time infers. It's been a joy, a pure pop experience, somehow spiked with legendary-length proggy potency.
A wildly inventive album for how small it is, some strange piece of camera trickery that will thrill fans of early aughts indie 4.5/5
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment