Blood Brothers-inspired sweat-spazz freakout right here. The Jonbenet toe the line. They’ve got moments where they sound crazed like the Locust, moments where they sound versatile but intrinsically gutted like the Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower (when that band’s really cooking and laying off the dull jazz interludes), odd dancey sections, and moments where the vocalist gets all heartfelt, runs his vocals through a fuzzbox, and emotes all rock-style like, uh, Candlebox? Matchbook Twenty? Some band like that. Thankfully, they keep those moments in check, and this album (which comprises their first two seven-inches) is for the most part pleasantly spastic and wigged out. The cat can really scream his friggin guts out when he wants to, too, and the end result comes down to the fact that this band seems to be teetering right on that ugly precipice of sounding just a bit too sassy and cute for their own good, but for the most part I’m still into it.
–keith (Pluto)