It makes sense that the members of Oklahoma City's the Uglysuit are all in their very early 20s. After all, on their debut album they play dreamy pop with a kind of stone-faced earnestness that only the very young possess. And like other short-in-the-tooth bands, they've yet to establish their own identity and instead blatantly borrow from their predecessors. Remember that semester when you went punk or grew a beard or started dressing solely in Goodwill polyester, and your new "look" briefly became your new personality? In much the same way, the Uglysuit spend most of their self-titled album trying on musical guises, perhaps as a way to suss out what kind of band they'd like to be.
The jangle and washed-out harmonies of tracks like "Brownblue Passing" suggest that Uglysuit are comfortable with territory already well-worn by the Shins, while "...And We Became Sunshine" features frontman Israel Hindman's eerily uncanny Conor Oberst imitation. Despite being so familiar, both songs are still charming in a wistful, glassy-eyed kind of way. "Chicago", with its glossy keyboard, soaring chorus, and plaintive vocals, is the collection's most accessible track, sounding like an updated, echo-laden version of the Counting Crows' "Long December". Instrumental interlude "Elliot Travels" feels at first like an out-of-place piano fantasia on an already short album. But when combined with the vertigo-inducing carnival "Anthem Of The Arctic Birds" that follows, it suggests that the band's truest influence is those delightful weirdoes from their hometown, the Flaming Lips.
Two of the nine tracks expand beyond the seven-minute mark, and it's when the Uglysuit stretch out that they seem to be having the most fun. "Everyone Now Has a Smile" and the aforementioned "...And We Became Sunshine" could use stronger hooks to anchor their crashing, psychedelic orchestrations, but they're still enjoyable and infused with a confidence lacking on the rest of the album.
The Uglysuit are certainly competent, but on this debut their music feels too by-the-book. Where are the surprises? With nothing unexpected and without a distinct musical personality of their own, the band feels too much like an indie-rock Frankenstein's monster, a creature born in the lab of a music supervisor for the CW. Their debut is perfect for soundtracking that bittersweet breakup on "Gossip Girl" or *"*One Tree Hill", but alone on a stereo, devoid of visual accompaniment, it's ultimately kind of empty. Which brings us back to the band's youth. The Uglysuit in a sense feels like a freshman survey class of modern indie, covering all the biggies (from Bright Eyes to Wilco) but failing in the details. They have potential, though, so here's hoping the Uglysuit graduate soon.
