Modey Lemon have been a perfectly capable band with obvious influences, attacking proto-punk and garage rock with aplomb, ability, and a glint of self-awareness. For fans who've been following them closely, hearing the occasional electronic detour in their meat-and-potatoes rock stew, The Curious City is the sound of your band all grown up. Compared to previous album Thunder + Lightning there's more melody, more ambitious structures, more psychedelic detours, and more surprises here.
"Bucket of Butterflies" sets the tone, moving from a sludgy, lumbering opening riff into a lighter, melodic shuffle through strummed sparkling pop into a three-note Disney villain gallop onto a snarling chorus and adroitly back to square one to start again. The streamlined "Sleepwalkers" is little less flashy, but still weaves electronic and psychedelic influences into a sleek whole, and the ghostly organs on the bouncy "In Another Land" provide some of the album's most psych-rock moments. They can also pull back and quiet down, as on the melodramatic mid-tempo "In the Cemetery", and the record's lyrics are sung with clarity and restraint.
The fluidity dulls some of the immediate punch of the songs might have otherwise-- the brief chorus to "Bucket of Butterflies" would make a fine song itself if the band wanted to keep things static-- but seamlessness is it's most impressive quality, especially following the apparently simple Thunder + Lightning. That old band appears every once in a while, popping up for a moment in "Bucket of Butterflies" or the reckless riffage and wailing of "Mr. Mercedes" like a hand gripping the inside brim of a boiling cauldron, but never for more than a moment.
The relentless shifting works best when not spending too long on any one idea, and when leaning on the monumental drumming of Paul Quattrone. "Bucket of Butterflies" is ably carried through hairpin turns in tempo and rhythm, and scurrying keyboard riffs like the one to "Red Lights" are pummeled senseless. Without Quattrone, the band couldn't get away with all this.
They don't get away with everything, though; The organ drenched "Fingers, Drains" gets bogged down in execution, and while the acoustic plucking of "Countries" is a pleasant change in sound, it's not nearly as captivating. Plus, the groove to the closing "Trapped Rabbits" is deadly, but not enough to sustain its 16-minute runtime. But that's another surprise: These 10 tracks feel epic with all their twists and turns, but rarely exceed the five-minute mark, and lose none of the urgency of the band's earlier work.
