The Fresh And Onlys - Play It Strange

01. Summer Of Love
02. Waterfall
03. Strange Disposition
04. Tropical Island Suite
05. I'm All Shook Up
06. Be My Hooker
07. Fascinated
08. Plague Of Frogs
09. Who Needs A Man
10. Red Light, Green Light
11. I'm A Thief

Over the past few years, San Francisco has given rise to a new scene of garage-pop bands pushing the frustrated proto-punk sounds of the 1960s in different directions. Girls are indie-pop classicists who hit heartbreak even when they don't reach for it. Thee Oh Sees take the scrapiest, ugliest sounds on the Nuggets compilations and run with them. Sonny & the Sunsets play cartoonish games with the skewed innocence they hear in oldies-radio fare. And then there are the Fresh & Onlys, who seem in love with the era when garage-rock thud and folk-rock jangle first fell for each other. The guys in the band aren't revivalists, exactly, but they are pastiche artists. And in their florid, carefully orchestrated chug, we hear bits of any number of historical pop moments: starry-eyed Buddy Holly pep, Byrdsian guitar sprawl, willfully silly Donovan Mellotron idealism, scraggly Sebadoh sighs, bored Dandy Warhols stoner glamor.

Since forming a few years ago, the band has kept up a steady stream of 7" and cassette releases, and Play It Strange is their third LP in as many years. But this one finds them starting to pull all those ideas into something a little more focused, something easier to digest. For the first time, they've left the confines of their home studio, and now they're working with an actual producer-- former Fucking Champs guy Tim Green, who might not exactly be Daniel Lanois, but he's still a big step for this band. Their smart little melodic flourishes have always been there, but now you don't have to strain your ear to hear them.

Even at their most straightforward, the Fresh & Onlys still find plenty of room to play around in the margins of their songs. "I'm All Shook Up" is a relative rave-up, but organs blurt and bass murmurs deep in the mix, adding melodic accents to the pounding. "Who Needs a Man" is a swampy rush that ends before you know it, but the ghostly shades of surf-guitar exotica keep things restless. And then there's "Tropical Island Suite", this band's shot at eight-minute "Hellhole Ratrace" grandeur. A straight-ahead, simplistic bash dissolves into muffled feedbacky noise halfway through, then returns as a slower, strummier lope. It's as if the band couldn't decide which way to play the song, so they just went with both ideas.

Singer Tim Cohen has a flat, affectless voice, nowhere near as expressive as peers like Christopher Owens or even Sonny Smith. But that baritone works nicely in the middle of the mix, and it's fun to hear him sounding bored of being a player on "I'm a Thief" or trying to escape information-age overload on "Waterfall". My favorite line comes on "Be My Hooker": "I can hear the open sea calling me, but I don't know, I don't know"-- wanderlust and indecision rendered in one quick, direct stroke. He keeps things concise, and the whole album finishes up business well before the 40-minute mark. May this band continue to crank out inventive little nuggets like this long into the future...www.pitchfork.com

El Goodo - Coyote

1. Feel So Fine
2. Aren’t You Grand
3. Don’t Worry Marie
4. I Saw Her Today
5. Information Overload
6. Talking to the Birds
7. Pete
8. I Can’t Make It
9. Be My Girl
10. Oh, to Sleep
11. I Only Dream

With the complete embodiment of late 60s-early 70s pop/rock—there’s even a Ringo throwaway on here—El Goodo fashion an imitable sound on their second album, Coyote. With an album title that doesn’t fit the music it’s depicting, in any sense of form, El Goodo try way too hard on this album’s insipid music. And though, for the first few times, this comes off as a novel and somewhat pleasant listen, repeated ventures reveal a trite idea gone wrong.

Super Furry Animals are a band that have ingeniously captured an essence and have branded that admirable style into something all their own. El Goodo’s press release attempts to familiarize one band with the other but it’s a blunt fact that the former is in another league. Take the album’s closer, “I Only Dream,” which features a worthless ten-minute gap of silence. The music begins with a folksy guitar before the band reaches for hazy vocals and lush atmospherics that The Mamas and Papas already accomplished decades ago. The ending is a swirling, baffling mash of sounds that neither impress, let alone confuse.

However, there is a good batch of songs to keep a listener locked in for a while. “Don’t Worry Marie” and “Information Overload” are sweet shuffles of earnest vocals and music that recall Spaghetti western soundtracks. While “Aren’t You Grand” is bluesy stomp, with some harmonica and harmonizing vocals for good measure. The problem lies within the band’s own identity: are they trying to sound like Jet or like Jet trying to be The Byrds? Either way, neither are good inspirations.

“Pete” is one of the few tunes that have a hint of sincerity floating around. With a crafty melody and uprising vocal progression, the song swims by with precise ease. And the album’s opener, “Feel So Fine” is a fine introduction, where even the noisy feedback is a smart move. The drums pound away as the multi-tracked vocals and fast-paced guitar take over.

With the right set of musicians and ideas, this type of sound could have surely achieved greatness. But when you get down to it, these are ideas that have not only been done before, but they were absolutely mastered, many, many years ago. And with an album that lacks any kind of bite, any sort of ferocity and a clear avoidance on bark, Coyote is a letdown. It’s this kind of music that makes some dreadful fodder like The Beep Seals seem approachable...www.adequacy.net