Here's the debut full-length from this up and coming indie rock act, dropping nine tracks in barely under a half-hour with plenty of warm, dry textures that are more than likely to please fans of this particular genre.? The recording definitely works, keeping an even mix that sounds nice and natural across the board.? All of the instruments play important roles, the vocals are a bit distant and fall right in line with the music, and everything is just dirty enough to make sense and fit the aesthetic of the playing.? The writing has a little bit of that loose, jangly kind of approach going on, and there's a pretty even blend of melody and lightly caustic fare, but it never heads too far in either direction, and that works out well.? None of the looser playing comes across as the least bit sloppy, the acerbic riffing doesn't have an overly intense bite, the melodic elements are accents rather than anything sappy or what have you, and there's a solid surging force to the rhythms without anything coming across as particularly heavy either.? The vocals are basically yelled or screamed or something in between, occasionally flirting with singing, but never really trying to fully get there.? "Five Sexy Alligators, Please" tosses in some nice backup shouts and lets the writing get a little more dynamic and involved with some obscure shifts between riffs, leading into the sparse intro to "I'll Be Your Huckleberry", which eventually lets a little more dissonance seep into the guitar layering to contrast the spacious guitar and bass interplay.? "Houston, We Have a Drinking Problem" (I'll assume that title was not intentionally lifted from Bad Astronaut?) is another quick track that offers a variety of approaches that create a memorable little piece, complete with effective pull-off riffs and more discordant guitar panning that pieces together nicely; while "Saccharine for My Sweetie" is a little more intense and emotional than the other tracks (especially in the vocal performance), throwing in some moodier clean guitars and more emphatic melodies to boot. The layout looks great and maintains a totally consistent aesthetic with entirely collaged imagery and typewriter text on brown paper that's all pieced together with the lettering and whatnot. Very nicely done. Despite some sarcastic song titles the lyrics are all totally personal and tend to be more interesting than average, despite a few areas that are definitely a little typical in general approach. I like most of what's going on, though. "I'm counting lessons I'll never learn on 20 fingers and 20 toes. I don't want to sleep it off tonight but I can still outrun the reruns with my friends of yesteryear. Maybe it's better we never see each other and live for right now..." I personally wouldn't call this a terribly original full-length, but I don't listen to a great deal of this stuff and I have to say that for what it is I find this to be significantly better than average. There's a quirky characteristic lingering about it all that can be kind of misleading, but the end result delivers. I don't know if they do a lot of touring or whatever, but if they start to get out there more I'd really expect ?em to make a name for themselves. Good work.
[The Perpetual Motion Machine]
Running time - 28:42, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: Five Sexy Alligators, Please, Houston, We Have a Drinking Problem, Saccharine for My Sweetie]
The Perpetual Motion Machine - http://www.theperpetualmotionmachine.com
