For a band in a nascent stage of their career, Unicycle Loves You was lucky enough to get Brian Deck behind the boards, and for the first 30 seconds of their self-titled record, you're ticking off his sonic calling cards-- clattering, junkyard percussion, odd time signatures, squiggly keyboards. The record has everything but Tim Rutili. Then again, Unicycle Loves You are confident enough to snatch it right back and turn the next half hour or so into the kind of ebullient indie pop record you'd never associate with the guy. They're a band with a vision, sure, even if said vision is a quick-cutting highlight reel through nearly every indie-pop hook of the past 20 years.
"Great Bargains for Seniors" is almost a sonic thesis statement; in quick succession, Unicycle Loves You reveals a deep (if not a little narrow) knowledge of craft within its cramped confines-- male/female harmonies, old-fashioned palm muting, cyclical melodies, all within a sort of riff-rocky martial shuffle usually attributable to Ted Leo. It's a real nice problem for a band at this stage to have, matching youthful hunger with opening-act eagerness to please. Second song "Kiki Bridges" ups the tempo with a cocktail of faux-glam sass and popular-kid emo; for its first eight minutes, the album passes the "American Bandstand" test.
But this is a situation where you start thinking to yourself way too early, "Wow-- do these guys already have enough hooks to last a whole album?" unaware of just how right you are. Take enough left turns and you ultimately start going in a circle-- as the record progresses, the melodies become doughier, and ULY gets progressively caught in a comfort zone of girls & booze indie-- in lieu of quoting any other lyrics, it's all but wrapped up in the line that sells "Dangerous Decade"-- "And she sold me out/ Now I'm gonna hit the bottle."
Without running through a list of ULY's artistic creditors, it can be hard to distinguish the latter half of the record from the dozens of other guys doing the same exact thing. "$ + ¢" is where the record starts to get overripe, Jim Carroll's barfly lyrics and strong hook fighting for space amidst an unusually crowded mix of keyboard presets. The casual misogyny of "Under 18" is the least of its concerns-- check your gag reflex before enduring the spoken-word breakdown and check your Dramamine supply before the band careens between time signatures. Any of its jagged offroading-- some B-52's synth jazz, faux-Aerosmith riffing, etc.-- could have made at least an interesting song if explored further, but as a mashed-up stew, it's almost like the Mae Shi in fast forward. Meanwhile, "Yum Pla Muk" is a misguided trip into minor keys, and ULY show they can't really navigate shadowlands at this point. Classic debut problem, in that if Unicycle Loves You have more worries about being understood than merely being heard, they have trouble conveying it. The question now is whether Unicycle Loves You will make more sense with time or whether Unicycle Loves You will.
