Labels: Coraille – Noyes
Review by: Alex Deller
These guys piqued my interest since I’d recently purchased a vinyl copy of “Smack Bunny Baby’ and the icy, inventive guitar lines I heard on this lot’s MySpace page seemed to sync up with the sounds I’d been refamiliarising myself with. While definitely lacking the overall weirdness and Tim Taylor’s inimitable delivery I think I might be reasonably safe in saying these guys still share a fondness for the same rough time when Brainiac were strutting their own strange stuff, with a myriad little hints here and there suggesting a familiarity with the likes of Sebadoh, Sonic Youth and Built To Spill as well as that weird time when emo went indie and the Subjugation mailouts were top-heavy with bands who wanted to be Braid.
The overall sound is bright and sharp, comprising staccato jabs, jerky rhythms and springy, whammybar-assisted guitar lines which all seem to have been specifically designed to prod some life into the boy/girl singers, their faraway murmurs and falsettos falling somewhere between the Shins’ James Russell Mercer and whoever it was who sang for obscure indiemo act Camden. This funny mix of insistent, restless instrumentation and weary, mumbly fragility lends Play Guitar a disarming sense of charm, and while the songs perhaps lack the out-and-out pizzazz to truly dazzle at this stage, this LP still offers plenty for folks who admire the poppier side of Sonic Youth, liked Blonde Redhead better before they shuffled off to 4AD and are still known to complain that the Firebird Suite never did anything as good as that first 7″.