"Excuse You" is a retro-style track that sounds like the Beasties in their early years. Barman sings, "I'm iller than the Iliad .../If you think you think outside the box, you're trapped in one."
One of the album's definite highlights, "Anarchist Bookstore, Pt. 1," features a jazzy vibe created by live instrumentation. Subtle electric piano lines along with Barman's confidently geeky flow, which never trips itself up, making this track the centerpiece of the album.
"A Somewhat New Medium," the closer, centers on Barman's pseudo-beat poetry and a loose bass and piano groove that recalls a Blaxpoitation film score and the Beasties' Check Your Head and Ill Communication.
Ultimately, Paullelujah is not unappealing, depending on one's mood or what someone wants from a listening.
It might be easy to dismiss the record as a cheesy, exclusively student-friendly record. This may be true to an extent, given Barman's style and flow -- the latter of which sounds like a dictionary in a blender or words pulled out of a hat.
But Barman is able to pull the whole thing off, largely based on his apparent sincerity and the depth of his lyrics, which -- appearances aside -- talk about everything from sex to race to politics while never seeming too preachy.
Ultimately, Barman's flow and the album's underground sensibilities succeed in posing a unique dilemma -- are the listeners supposed to nod their heads or laugh out loud?
By Tacque Kirksey
Matt Pond PA
The Nature of Maps
4 Stars
The Nature of Maps, the latest album by Matt Pond PA, conjures the feeling of the winter landscapes its lyrics often describe -- inspiring in its beauty and slightly dizzying.
Strings spiral like snowflakes, blanketing the arrangements in symphonic depth. The lyrics are plaintive and longing for summer's warmth. Lovely and removed, the album is an authoritative treatise on loneliness without feeling self-absorbed.
In short, it's a remarkable effort.
To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.
Composed of two cellists, a drummer, bassist and guitarist, Matt Pond PA strives to sound more like a symphony than a run-of-the-mill rock band. It succeeds with flourishes like an ethereal harp backing on "Athabasca" and the throbbing vibraphone chord that ushers in "Summer Is Coming."
Each of these embellishments, perfectly placed, combines for a haunting statement that reverberates long after the album's final notes fade.
Frontman and guitarist Matt Pond plays host over the festivities, grounding the album in rock roots while letting its symphonic aspirations soar. Pond might sound like your average tortured indie rocker, but his melodies and lyrics feature a seductive simplicity that juxtapose the intricacy of their arrangements.
From the dirge-like "The Party" to the spiraling waltz of "Summer Is Coming," each of the songs on The Nature of Maps seems an extension of the others, all playing on similar themes and images -- falling leaves, lingering lights and solitude ("So silence is the way/Of breaking up the days," Pond intones in "Close Map").
Some songs, such as "New Kehoe NJ" and the archly titled "A Million Middle Fingers," are more brief snippets than fully-realized songs. "No More (Again)" is an instrumental reprise of the earlier "No More," an impressive and almost operatic touch. The end result of these orchestral flourishes is an album that both captivates and subdues, a work of wintry desperation that refuses to give up on the spring.
The breathtaking final song on the LP, "Athabasca," ends with an urging to "Follow back into past winter time/Back to fall, back to those early summers."
We would do just that if only this album would let us from its grip.
By Jill Spivey
Minus the Bear
Highly Refined Pirates
3 Stars
If robots could dance, Minus the Bear's Highly Refined Pirates would be disc one in their multi-disc robo-stereo.
Pursuing a route of mechanical beats, precise rhythms and seamlessly clean vocals, the quintet's aptly titled release negotiates 14 crisp tracks with a clear agenda -- deliver an expanding interpretation of rock in the tradition of Fugazi and Queens of the Stone Age.
But take a moment to digest the instrumental nuances -- the single-note repetition of the bass line is a framework that's engineered and efficient. The technical, high-pitched guitar noodling and keyboard ambience are a texture that is electronic and enveloping. The tight drumbeat is a mechanism that sets its standards by the end of the first song, closing it with defined intensity.
By the third song you also realize that despite its rigid structure, the band plays by its own rules. It defies convention with odd changes in time signature, distinctive shuffling beats, an infrequently rhyming lyric meter and occasional bridges played in a God-knows-what scale. As icing on the cake, songs on the album are segued by instrumental interludes that sound amusingly new age.
Minus the Bear is indeed something of a technical machine, but it's a machine possessed by quirk and emotion.
Singer Jake Snider's refined vocals are brimming with fervor and bittersweet meaning. This is the stuff of nocturnal introspection after those nights of finding love with someone new. This is the stuff of experience gleaned in every day's misfortune.
The album's closer, "Let's Play Guitar in a Five Guitar Band," is all nostalgia -- "A few summers ago/We spent weeks in her room/Just having sex and listening to jazz/And that was the life."
Emotional culmination in the choruses is controlled but fervent -- Snider lets loose without surrendering a moment of pitch.
But Minus the Bear is not your typical derivative melodrama. It recognizes that music is not just a backdrop for vocalists' soapbox and knows the limits of decency.
Observe the absurdly irrelevant song titles, for instance, and you'll notice the band's subtle humor serving as chasers to the shots of poignancy. A song about a midnight car ride along a lakeshore is titled "Monkey!!! Knife!!! Fight!!!" while the lyric-less song four, soothing and sedate, is "Hey, Wanna Throw Up?"
Highly Refined Pirates is a solid release from a young band that's fresh but still learning. The album doesn't redefine versatility or innovation, but it's nevertheless a noteworthy step toward that end.
So, uh, rock and roll.
By Brandon Whiteside
