More 70's inspired rock from Meteor City, but, to my ears, this sounds even trippier and more 70's influenced than most bands playing all out rock 'n' roll these days. As someone who's never been too big on that whole thing I'm not sure who I'd compare this to, but I can listen to it... it's not that bad. It's got some strangeness to it, as much of the material is moderately paced, and there are lots of spacey effects on the guitars, droning slide guitar lead lines, etc. "Light" is much calmer and more laidback musically; followed by the short and simple "Thanks Anyway" which is a basic, catchy rock song that almost has a poppy edge to it; while the instrumental "Talking Candles" is darker and a bit bluesier, using some excellent acoustic guitars with lightly distorted chords in the distance, along with those sliding leads in the core of the track. They close with a one-minute snippet of a cover of Run-DMC's "You Be Illin'" which is, well... pointless... but it's only a minute, so fuck it. I like the recording a lot on this thing. It's got an aged sound to it, but it's clearer and rounder than something that's actually three decades old. Everything is fairly dense and the clarity is great, never sacrificing the cohesion of the mix. The layout looks alright. I like the cover emblem a lot, and most of the colors and designs are pretty consistent, with a weird abstract pattern underneath the disc, and high contrast band images inside the booklet. No lyrics or anything like that are included. I'm not totally into this, there are a few songs that kind of stink, but "Talking Candles" is exceptional, and as a whole I can certainly appreciate a good chunk of this. The more open-minded fans of this style and more specifically the Meteor City label should be able to find some worth in this material.
[Meteor City]
Running time - 33:28, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: Kamikaze, Talking Candles]
Meteor City - http://www.meteorcity.com
